Play Tempest at Home — The Right Arcade Spinner

Play Tempest at Home — The Right Arcade Spinner

Tempest lives and dies by its spinner. The original cabinet used a weighted rotary dial you could flick and let coast — whipping your blaster around the tube rim. A joystick can't do it, and a light plastic knob can't either. What you want is mass, bearings and a high-resolution optical sensor.

What you need

• GRS Arcade Spinner (TS-USP) — made for Arcade1Up panels, drop-in size, USB out
• GRS Push & Pull Spinner Ultra (TS-DOT) — adds push/pull input for games that use it, with the Ultra precision upgrade
• GRS Button-Hole Spinner Ultra (TS-BSP) — mounts in a standard button hole, perfect for retrofits with no panel cutting

Setup notes

• USB plug-and-play — MAME sees it as a mouse axis; assign Dial Device to Mouse
• Tune Analog Controls per game: Tempest wants high sensitivity, Arkanoid and Breakout a bit lower
• On an Arcade1Up Tempest cabinet the GRS spinner replaces the stock dial — mapping table in the Arcade1Up guide

Tron player? That game pairs a spinner with a flight stick — see the Tron control setup. Full builds start at the MAME cabinet parts guide.