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I've always wanted a controller with dual D-pads
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MaximRecoil:
Preferably a Nintendo-manufactured one, since they make the best D-pads in my opinion. When I was a kid and I heard that there was a version of Karate Champ for the NES, I thought how great it would be if they had retained the dual joystick control scheme from the arcade, and included a special dual D-pad controller for use with it.

And much later on, after discovering MAME, I again wished I had a dual D-pad controller, not only for Karate Champ, but for other dual joystick games like Robotron and Smash TV.

I just happened across a picture of a Virtual Boy controller. It has dual D-pads, and it is made by Nintendo. I don't know how I missed that for all these years.

Any ideas for getting a Virtual Boy controller to work on a PC? Does it use a unique plug, or does it share a plug with any other Nintendo systems?
HaRuMaN:
Hack it to a USB gamepad...  or to an iPac... 

It can be done.  I've modded a SNES controller to be used on an Xbox before.
Jack Burton:
It can be done.

http://www.goliathindustries.com/vb/download/vbpar.txt

http://arcadecontrols.com/Mirrors/www.csc.tntech.edu/~jbyork/default.htm

Personally if you want a dual d-pad NES controller this looks promising:



This is an X68000 controller, and according to the thread here:

http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/386

it uses the same chip (and I think the same port) as a Genesis/megadrive controller.

Maybe, just maybe you plug it into this thing and it will work.

http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=69





MaximRecoil:

--- Quote from: Jack Burton on December 08, 2010, 04:44:24 pm ---Personally if you want a dual d-pad NES controller this looks promising:

http://nfgcontrols.com/grafx/X68000-CCpad.png
--- End quote ---

I like the looks and simplicity of that thing; never seen one before. However, I have a strong preference for Nintendo-built D-pads; others have never seemed quite right to me.

About the parallel port + SNESKey hookup, I'd rather do it through USB, so I can have two controllers hooked up at once, and be able to plug/unplug them easily and while the PC is on.

However, I'm not sure how to go about connecting one to something like a USB keyboard encoder, because they don't have a 1:1 switch-to-wire thing going on like with arcade controls; there are only 6 pins in the plug, but there are 8 switches just for the 2 D-pads alone, plus several others for the buttons.
ahofle:

--- Quote from: MaximRecoil on December 08, 2010, 05:20:02 pm ---I like the looks and simplicity of that thing; never seen one before. However, I have a strong preference for Nintendo-built D-pads; others have never seemed quite right to me.

--- End quote ---

IMO the Nintendo Wavebird D-Pad is one of the worst D-Pads ever.  Maybe it's just me though as I have never been a fan of D-Pads in general.
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