What would you like in a controller adaptor?

[Howard_Casto]

I'm not willing to set a price point yet mainly because I'm still researching materials myself but to give you a general idea I was thinking something in the 30-40 dollar range for the base unit and anywhere form 3 bucks to 15 for each individual console module depending upon the expense of the connector.

I can perhaps reduce the price of the base unit if I decide to manufacture a a custom avr, but the module prices are pretty much dependant upon the connector costs. 

That being said, I'm looking at my list of consoles released in the US and if you lump all the atari era consoles together (which you should, they all use the same connector and same  protocol) there are only 12 consoles period, so a kit that supports 10-12 would support all of them. 

I terms of looks the plan is to have the avr in a slim line project box with a db 25 on the end and the various controller ports each get their own slim line project box that plugs into it. 

But because I'm using a db25 (parallel port connector) you can make your own adaptors quite easily and mount them to anything.  I fully intend to document the various pinouts. 

[Howard_Casto]

Keyboards, regardless of what they came off of, are just matrixes like a pc keyboard.

The Miracle Keyboard is not a typing keyboard but rather a music keyboard for the NES, SNES, Mac, Amiga, Genesis and PC.  I'm not sure if you knew that and they use the same technology so I'm pointing it out just in case.

My bad, I was thinking of the famicom keyboard.  I'm sure it's pretty easy to implement, but I have to have one in order to test it. 

[Monkey]

Dont know if this is of any use to you Howard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_console_controllers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamepad

most of the more popular controllers for most of the popular consoles

there is a pad i cant find, it was a SNES IIRC controller, it had a analogue touchpad instead of the D-Pad, the touchpad was blue and in a hexagional shape IIRC

are you thinking about steering wheel support?

[Howard_Casto]

Dont know if this is of any use to you Howard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_console_controllers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamepad

most of the more popular controllers for most of the popular consoles

there is a pad i cant find, it was a SNES IIRC controller, it had a analogue touchpad instead of the D-Pad, the touchpad was blue and in a hexagional shape IIRC

are you thinking about steering wheel support?

It probably would be helpful if the information was accurate.  Like most things on wikipedia, it unfortuantely isn't.  Take the multitap entries....  while it's technically true that the snes could support 10 pads if two multitaps were plugged in at once, there isn't a single game that supports more than 5 controllers.  This error is repeated for all the multitap entires throughout the document. 

Even if the physical pad was analog, I've got to think that the pad showed up as a regular gamepad because I can't think of any games outside of superscope/mouse games that support analog controls. 

Steering wheel support is planned.  Typically wheels didn't start showing up until controllers had analog sticks and typically they were simply a regular gamepad as far as the console was concerned, so I doubt I'll have to do much. 

[Malenko]

It probably would be helpful if the information was accurate.  Like most things on wikipedia, it unfortuantely isn't.  Take the multitap entries....  while it's technically true that the snes could support 10 pads if two multitaps were plugged in at once, there isn't a single game that supports more than 5 controllers. 

Technically you are right, but there was a release that supported 8 players, N-warp Daisakusen. If you put the rom for N-warp Daisakusen on a cart, you can play an 8 player game with 2 multitaps. Its not a retail release but it does exist, I just dont want inaccurate information spread around

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah I'm aware of it, but homebrew doesn't count. 

I'm not going to have led lights as an option because of those xmas games retrozone makes either. 

[Monkey]

This should be more useful (hopefully)

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=blob_plain;f=Documentation/input/joystick-parport.txt;hb=HEAD

the controller i was thinking of was the Turbo Touch 360, it was made for the NES, SNES and the Saturn/Genisis.

it did only use the stand D-Pad but it was touch sensitive no analogue like i thought, this was to reduce RSI and thumb fattigue LOL.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah there isn't much on the turbografx so that might be helpful thanks. 

That pad you are talking about is a standard gamepad, so it should work.


Took a trip to my local dollar tree today.  I found the micro usb cables needed for the avr that are normally 2-3 bucks for 1 dollar there.  So yay for me and my cheapness!  I also found a package of 10,  2" x 2" plastic boxes for a dollar.  If they weren't clear then it would probably our project boxes.   

I need to spend some time scrounging for components.  If I can't do anything about the cost of the cables maybe I can do soemthing about the cost of the more common parts. 

[Howard_Casto]

Just an update:

My real world obligations are slowing down a bit again and the teensys are back in stock, so I'll be starting some actual coding very soon. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well I would, but they were a rubberized plastic, so it probably wouldn't take.  Besides, by the time you add in the cost of paint and added labor it wouldn't be much of a savings. 

Hey if you can find me cheaper project boxes I'm all for it.  The going price for a modest sized box is in the 1-3 dollar range + shipping.  That's pretty darn low as-is, but considering we are going to need one for each console type it adds up.   

[Howard_Casto]

Just another update.... real world stuff is still going on so I haven't got my stuff yet.  Hopefully I'll have time to order it tomorrow. 

In the mean time I'm still researching.  In regards to matrixed controllers (intellivision, atari kids controller, jaguar, ect) I ran across some example code for the teensy specifically designed to do matrixed keypads.  Doing a matrix isn't terribly complicated, but managing it is.  This library allows you to setup a matrix of any size and map it in any order you wish.  This means I can make/delte matrices on the fly, and that I can pretty much use the same function for all matrixed controllers after the initial button mapping.  All good news as it simplifies one of the most difficult type of controllers to deal with in our setup.

[Howard_Casto]

AVR is ordered!

I haven't dove into ordering all of the the controller plugs/extension cables yet, but I'll do that once my chip comes in and I manage to get a few things running on it. 

[SavannahLion]

I think I missed this. What AVR are you going with?

[Howard_Casto]

The teensy 2.0 for now.  If I ever go with the custom pcb route there are plans for an open-source version of the teensy 2.0 on the net so it seems like the best way to go. 

The main reason I went with it is simplicity and price.  It's 19 bucks ( 21.50 with connectors, 22.50 with usb cable) it has native usb support and you can update your code on the fly without the need for a programmer.   

I feel like that I could sell a system with this avr at the core, add a bit to the price to make a modest profit and not feel like I'm over-charging.  And if that's not the case I'll look into a custom pcb and see if that actually reduces the price.

I think I'm going to start a new thread now.  I want to publically document the pinouts/protocols of some of these oddball controllers.  I'm not willing to open up my source code, but I do want people to understand how to interface to these controllers in case everything falls through. 

[Malenko]

I'd like a controller adapter that has a cool name, something cooler then unicon.

[crashwg]

I'd like a controller adapter that has a cool name, something cooler then unicon.

Not sure if that was a joke or not but I laughed anyway.  As funny as it was though I have to agree.  Hopefully that's not the final product name.

[Howard_Casto]

Unicon is a awesome name.

1.  Tells what the product does.
2.  Is simple and thus easy to remember. 
3.  Sort of sounds like a Transformer, and Transformers rule. 

If you guys can think of a better name that covers 1 and 2 then I'm all for it. 

[SavannahLion]

Try Unicron. Destroyer of the Universe.

[SavannahLion]

That whole Avenue 6 thing really pissed me off so I went looking for the schematics and found what I was looking for. http://www.webalice.it/cicciopetito/
It's not in English but who cares? A wire is a wire and it's easy enough to figure out how the controllers work if you have it and the white sheets for the ICs.

[Howard_Casto]

Thanks for the link... I'll look into it further. 

I've updated the wip page again, adding better info for the 2600 protocol now that I better understand what is going on (which I ironically got from a site showing how to mod a atari flashback 2), and added in the 7800 protocol and the vectrex protocol since they are so similar. 

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Try Unicron. Destroyer of the Universe.

+1

[Howard_Casto]

I hope you guys are kidding.  Unicron is copyrighted you know. 

In other news I've finally gotten the AVR situation squared away. 

Unfortunately I was so focused on getting it replaced that I neglected to order the other parts!

I need to at least buy a project box and some db25 connectors to get started. 

So while we are on the subject does anyone have any suggestions for cool (and more importantly cheap) project boxes?

In terms of dimensions it can be as small as a parallel port connector and the avr will fit in just fine BUT the width probably needs to be twice that to make room for snes and playstation connectors, which are quite large.


On the research end, I've also  figured out the 5200 controller (UGH) and the Jaguar.  I've decided not to put them on the wip thread yet because it's getting a little too long.  Perhaps I need to switch over to html, or at least PDF so we can get the proper charts, images and links in there. 

[Howard_Casto]

Guys I'm wondering if you can help me find the pinouts for the Odyssey. 

Technically speaking the Odyssey did (at least initially) have removable controllers and technically it did have carts.  Also it was released in the US and has an emulator, so even though I dobut anyone would want to hook one of those dinosaurs up, it fits our requirements for inclusion. 

I've found plenty of info on the odyssey 2 and have it ready to go, but next to none on the original.  I know it has a custom 9 pin connector (almost looks like molex) and that the standard controller had three enalog pots and a rest button.  I also know that an optional lightgun was released. 

Can anybody help me out?

Beleive it or not I've found info on pretty much every applicable golden age system except for this one. 

[lanman31337]

http://www.pong-story.com/1tl200blak_sch.pdf

does that help?

[elkameleon]

i just want to add that the sega light gun was called the menacer. Oh and make sure you have support for this crappy add-on.

http://www.revrob.com/sci-a-tech-topmenu-52/146-sega-activator-full-body-motion-controller

Sega had a way with hardware... I actually kind of miss that. :'(