Got an old arcade controller working.

 I had a now ancient arcade controller that hasn't work since sometime before the end of the last century.  It was basically just a big box of microswitches not hooked to anything.  I had been building an arcade cabinet at the time.

I bought a generic usb controller board from amazon based on lowest price.  It came with the wires to connect the board to the microswitches. It also had a longer wire with a usb connector on one end and a 4 pin board connector on the other end, along with a strain relief.  I searched for "Zero Delay Arcade USB Encoder" and came up with a huge list.  I could have gotten 2 of them for just a little more than I paid for one of them. 

I removed all the existing wires from everything but the joystick and put all the connections to the nearest open port on the board.  It doesn't really matter how you set it up, except for the 4 connections on one end adjusted the board settings. 

I left the wires attached to my joystick, but I had to switch two wires to get the common wire that went to every switch to the end.  The other wires are labelled with two letters, I'm sure you can figure that out.  Luckily the board connector on the joystick wires plugged right into the new board.  I ran the connector through the hole and forced the strain relief into an empty slot in the back.  

I plugged the board into my retropi machine that I just built and booted and was able to map the keys how I wanted. :D  I am now playing robotron with a game pad in my left hand and this arcade joystick in my right hand. :D 

I screwed the board into the bottom side of the top of the case.  I reused tiny screws I got from taking apart another project. :D  If not you may need to order some tiny screws from or just use a generous amount of hot glue. :D  I even had the bottom of the case I removed 20 years ago.  I fortified it with 4 felt pads to act as standoffs to keep the screw heads from scratching anything,  If I remember correctly the old case had little rubber standoffs held on by the case screws.  

Fin.