I got a call from my friend Jeff about a Mad Planets game that was for sale in my general area. He got real lucky and was able to secure the game, even though the ad had been up on craigslist for several hours. (Read the full Mad Planets story.) I agreed to go pick it up ASAP ~ you can’t wait on a good deal.

I arrived at the storage unit to meet Scott (the seller) and chat with another local collector, Joe M, who was there to buy a Taxi pin. After a few concerned moments that involved the seller utilizing bolt cutters (!), we got access to the unit and the treasures inside. The Mad Planets was in great shape, so I paid for the game and loaded it up. Included in the deal was this wild looking prototype control panel. Scott is a former Midway employee and when he was looking for a suitable joystick to repair the Mad Planets, he was given this sample control panel to pull parts from.

Scott didn’t have much to say about the panel, it was just a prototype. I guess that means the game never made it very far in the development cycle or perhaps changed to require a different set of controls. The control has a gorf style flight stick with elliptical buttons arranged to match up to each finger. The layout makes me think “space shooter” for sure, but who knows, it could have been anything.

As cool as this panel is, I have no use for it other than parts for the Mad Planets repair. So, if you love the panel and happen to have a nice, complete MP joystick laying around, drop me a line, quick!

Tags: control panel, midway, prototype

This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 11:24 am and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.