After a couple of years of good use out of the sidewinders, I decided to retire them and use a more current and robust solution. The gamepads worked well, but because of driver issues with more current operating systems, and basically non-existant use in DOS, I finally went with an iPac keyboard encoder from www.ultimarc.com All of my fears I had about keyboard encoders in the past have been completely worked out, and they have got to be the easiest, and probably the cheapest way to interface a control panel with a computer.

The iPac couldn't be easier to use. Right out of the box it is already configured to be used directly with MAME without any configuration or programming. The card is clearly labeled so wiring is a snap, and there are screw-in type of connectors, so soldering or crimping isn't even needed. I purchased the 28 input version which is perfect for my StreetFighter style control panel. There are still 4 unused buttons after I hooked up everything.

Wiring the iPac to my interface was a breeze as I made a good decision early on to use 25pin connectors to hook the control panel into the interface that is being used. This allowed me to easily use my control panel for GamePads, JAMMA boards, and now my iPac interface. In the pic below you can see how I just wired new 25pin connectors to the iPac then just plugged them into my control panel buttons.

I'm very glad on the purchase, and I can highly recommend this interface to anyone looking to build a control panel of their own.