Tankstick
The Tankstick is a videogame peripheral made by Xgaming, as part of their X-Arcade series.
It plugs into a home computer via PS/2 or USB connectors (it has both). The computer sees it as a keyboard and mouse, although it's actually two joysticks and a trackball, along with many arcade buttons.
As it uses real arcade parts, it's as hefty and rugged as the real thing, and its parts are easily replaceable if needed or desired.
Personally, I took the liberty of switching out the first four buttons for each player with Neo-Geo coloured versions (red, yellow, green, and blue respectively), making it slightly easier to use with those games.
While you can plug in a PS/2 keyboard to reprogram it, by default it uses the old two player MAME standard keyboard controls,[1] which are usually exactly what you want. The X-Arcade series is also now popular enough in its own right that it's in turn supported by MAME version 0.189 onwards.
Default keyboard controls
The Tankstick sends the following keyboard controls by default:[1]
| Physical button | Key |
|---|---|
| Coin slot 1 | 3 |
| Coin slot 2 | 4 |
| Player 1 start / 1 player mode | 1 |
| Player 2 start / 2 player mode | 2 |
| Player 1 ↑ | ↑ |
| Player 1 → | → |
| Player 1 ↓ | ↓ |
| Player 1 ← | ← |
| Player 1 button 1 | Left ctrl |
| Player 1 button 2 | Left alt |
| Player 1 button 3 | Spacebar |
| Player 1 button 4 | Left shift |
| Player 1 button 5 | Z |
| Player 1 button 6 | X |
| Player 1 button 7 | C |
| Player 1 button 8 | 5 |
| Player 2 ↑ | R |
| Player 2 → | G |
| Player 2 ↓ | F |
| Player 2 ← | D |
| Player 2 button 1 | A |
| Player 2 button 2 | S |
| Player 2 button 3 | Q |
| Player 2 button 4 | W |
| Player 2 button 5 | E |
| Player 2 button 6 | [ |
| Player 2 button 7 | ] |
| Player 2 button 8 | 6 |
References
- "Tankstick manual" Xgaming, 2006
Downloads
Documentation
- "Tankstick manual" Xgaming, 2006
Arcade video game emulation: Tankstick
