Intellivision USB adapters discontinued- Options?

[tommyinajar]

I wanted to try running an emulator of Intellivision on the Pc, What are people using for controls? Last time I tried Tron Deadly Disc and AD&D and the number pad on the keyboard didn't cut it.

I see Retrozone no longer sells them. Any adapters or can you hook the up to a ipac or keywiz or something?
(I'm sure this has been mentioned but I didn't see anything current.)

[nick3092]

Raphnet sells a USB one. Even has a connector that fits the plug on the intv mobo. I have one, works great. I actually have several of his adaptor circuits. If you can solder, you can make your own cables and save.

http://www.raphnet-tech.com/products/intellivision_to_usb_adapter/index.php?category=

[tommyinajar]

If you can solder, you can make your own cables and save.

http://www.raphnet-tech.com/products/intellivision_to_usb_adapter/index.php?category=

I can't imagine anybody here that can't solder!! 

Cool- looks like a good deal, glad you bought and tried one first. I always worry about "unknown" adapters. Now I just got to dig up some controllers. I think mine are shot. I played Intellivision at least as much as the 2600.

Except now I might as well order the Genesis adapter too, so I don't have to hear- "I would have beat you if I had the original controller" ever again!

Thanks-

[chiLLbiLLy]

Looking for the same thing, only for the Colecovision.  No luck with either Retrozone or Raphnet......bleargh.   

[LASooner]

+1 on Raphnet, I bought 2 of them and they work so well, I could not get my dad to stop playing Night Stalker. 

[Hoopz]

As far as I know, Raphnet is the only option.  Shiny Technology had made the Classic Gaming Controller which allowed you to hook up either Intellivision or Intellivision II controllers via USB.  It was expensive (~$75) but is a great product.  They had two production runs but the company is gone now.  I haven't looked in a while but I'd be curious what they would go for on Ebay.

For dedicated hardware, there's always the Cuttle Cart 3.  A tad bit more expensive though.   
http://schells.com/cc3.shtml

[tommyinajar]

Has anyone tried the emulator with regular joysticks maybe 2 8-ways or whatever combo?

- I Only tired it once a few years ago with the keyboard and one joystick(I think) and said never again with out the right controllers.

+1 on Raphnet, I bought 2 of them and they work so well, I could not get my dad to stop playing Night Stalker. 

That was one of my favorites. Still remember bringing it home from Kmart (That was my favorite shot on TV at the time too)

 Also:
 Tron Deadly Discs (almost always made it to the caputre part).

 The Dreadnaught Factor

 Advanced Dunguneon & Dragons (When a bear would come out of nowhere and scare the S**T out of you.

 I also loved "Sea Battle" but no one would play me. I guess they didn't appreciate the sheer genius strategy of me mining their harbor.

[Hoopz]

Has anyone tried the emulator with regular joysticks maybe 2 8-ways or whatever combo?

- I Only tired it once a few years ago with the keyboard and one joystick(I think) and said never again with out the right controllers.

+1 on Raphnet, I bought 2 of them and they work so well, I could not get my dad to stop playing Night Stalker. 

That was one of my favorites. Still remember bringing it home from Kmart (That was my favorite shot on TV at the time too)

 Also:
 Tron Deadly Discs (almost always made it to the caputre part).

 The Dreadnaught Factor

 Advanced Dunguneon & Dragons (When a bear would come out of nowhere and scare the S**T out of you.

 I also loved "Sea Battle" but no one would play me. I guess they didn't appreciate the sheer genius strategy of me mining their harbor.

For AD&D, do you mean the dragon in the purple mountains)?  Loved that game.

And I literally did laugh out loud about the Sea Battle comment.  It got to the point where only one friend would play that game with me. It was a race to see who could lay the mines at the other guy's harbor first.

The Intellivision games on anything other than the original controllers doesn't work.  I've had them on the PC, cabinet, Xbox, and DS and while some are ok, nothing beats the original.

I don't remember if I bought my copy of Night Stalker at K-mart or Airway/Target, but it still gets a lot of use.  Lock N Chase is another that gets played every time the system goes on.  I doubt I could do a Top 10 list of my favorites.  Maybe top 25.

[nick3092]

Looking for the same thing, only for the Colecovision.  No luck with either Retrozone or Raphnet......bleargh.    

Raphael has been known to take requests for new adaptors. He added a new feature to one in the past for me. I've emailed him twice over the last month to see if I could commission him to build and sell one. I haven't heard back from him.

I've found some documentation on how the coleco controllers work and sent him the links. His interface boards seem pretty universal. Just a matter of coding and programming the AVR micro controller to handle the device. Unfortunately I know nothing about coding ATmega8 AVRs. And right now work is sucking every last bit of motivation out of me currently, so I don't forsee myself learning any time soon.

[tommyinajar]

Yea I guess it was a dragon without wings-(to me it looked like a bear) -It took 2 shots to kill. The dragons with wings, were guarding the crown took 3 shots to kill. That's from google, I was just going on memory.  Now that I'm reminiscing anyone looking for a few more of the best- Bump 'n Jump, Burgertime, Micro surgeon,  Atlantis, and Dracula 

[ahofle]

Man I wish someone would create a USB repro of that controller.

[LASooner]

Any game that requires the keypad will just not be playable/fun with anything less.

I bought the 2 raphnet USB adapters and two refurbished controllers from this guy

http://4jays.net/store//page86.html

Now if I could only find repros of the inserts for the controllers I would be very happy, I was thinking of just making hyperspin themes with images of the insert so you can at least see what the buttons are supposed to be.

Bomb squad was always one of my favorites, WRONG PART! and a heart attack ensues!

[popsicle]

Do any of the mentioned usb devices accurately emulate the 16-directional pad?

[tommyinajar]

Do any of the mentioned usb devices accurately emulate the 16-directional pad?

From Ralpnet's info page-"All 16 directions (+ Idle position) of the disc are functional"
Good question though, I forgot they were not 8 way. I guess only a few games used 16- Tron DD being one of them.
Can't wait for adapters to get here!

[popsicle]

A lot of games utilized the 16-directional pad, most notably every sports game.  Also, Utopia, Sea Battle, Armor Battle, B-17 Bomber, Space Spartans, Tron Deadly Discs, D&D, geez I could go on...

This is the sole reason I've held off in putting an Intellivision emulator in my cab with 8-ways. (and the plethora of buttons that would be needed for a lot of these games).  A stained wood Intellivision bartop sounds like a good future project, with the right controllers.

[nick3092]

Looking for the same thing, only for the Colecovision.  No luck with either Retrozone or Raphnet......bleargh.    

I've found some documentation on how the coleco controllers work and sent him the links. His interface boards seem pretty universal. Just a matter of coding and programming the AVR micro controller to handle the device. Unfortunately I know nothing about coding ATmega8 AVRs. And right now work is sucking every last bit of motivation out of me currently, so I don't forsee myself learning any time soon.

So I've been doing some preliminary research on modifying the firmware/PCB for his generic DB9 interface. It won't work as is, since the coleco uses 2 seperate common wires, which in his design happen to go to +5 and GND. Which means you would short out the device if you used the stick/fire buttons at the same time as the key pad. But I've been talking to a friend of mine who is rediculously smart and knows all about this stuff. He pointed out that on the stock PCB are solder pads for the programming pins for the AVR. Which he pointed out can be used as normal data points when the AVR is not being programmed. So it's just a matter of moving 2 of the pins to those pads.  I think I'm going to hook those two pins up to a switch, and mount the whole thing in a box. Then I can still retain the genesis/SMS functionality that needs the +5.

So it seems the stock PCB can be used. Now I just need to learn C and how to interact with the micro controller. My friend has offered to give me some guidance on this. So I think I will give it a go. Assuming I can pull it off, I will provide the updated firmware to Raphael to ship out with the adaptors. Since its gpl, I could also provide it to any one who has one with an older firmware and access to a programmer. Or maybe I could program it for people if they want to ship it to me.

Ok, I'm putting the cart in front of the horse here. And I'll return this thread back to the original topic. If/when I'm successful, I'll start a new thread.

[tommyinajar]

Holy Thread Jack Batman!!
  (Just kidding, please post a link to the new topic you start in this post so anyone including me will be aware of any progress) Good luck on your endeavor!

[tommyinajar]

Hey anyone try these before-Any good? It would let me use 2 broken ones I have.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110822174891&fromMakeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:en

[judebarnes]

Chillbilly can you pm me? The system won't let me send messages yet.

[tommyinajar]

Just an FYI since I started this thread, I just ordered from http://www.intellivision.us/intvgames/interface/interface.php.  $77 total shipped.

Looking for the same thing, only for the Colecovision.  No luck with either Retrozone or Raphnet......bleargh.   

Also does Colecovision and 2600  (Save a couple of $$ for 3-in-1 adapter and less cluttter) 

[nick3092]

Huh.  Well, I think I shall be buying one of those as well.  Then I can give up on my attempt to modify Raph's AVR code to handle Coleco.  I haven't had the time or the ability to successfully modify the code to handle the spinner.  Got the rest of the joystick reading in proper though.  Oh well, this is a better solution anyway since it handles multiple systems.

Thanks for the heads up.

[nick3092]

So, I bought one of these uber Intv/Coleco/Atari interfaces.  For Intv, it does what is advertised (at least for the controllers - I haven't tried my ECS keyboard yet, and I don't have the synth).  But for Coleco, it doesn't appear he implemented the spinner correctly.  He put it on an analog Z Rotation axis.  Which has a definite start and end.  Where as a true spinner doesn't, and should be implemented more like a HID mouse.  so when you max out the Zr axis, it jumps down to 0, and starts climbing again.  It also doesn't seem to poll fast enough for the higher resolution of the steering wheel and trackball.

I fired off an email to the guy who makes them to see what he has to say about it.  I'm not sure If I can talk him into properly implementing the spinner controls or not.  Worst case, I just bought an expensive Intv and mostly Coleco USB interface.

[PL1]

The KADE team is planning on adding selected retro-controller support after the release in a few weeks.

This sounds like something that would be a good fit for adding as part of their open-source hardware/software/firmware.

People are already designing KADE compatible breakout/daughter boards to support mouse/trackball and PC/Console controller switching.


Scott

[mega-emu.com]

MEGA-EMU.COM Has intellivision and colecovison usb .
Take a look.

[tommyinajar]

Sorry to hear about the Coleco spinners not working right. I just got it for the Intellivison & 2600 use. I emailed him 2 or 3 times before and he was prompt and helpful in his responses.

[Toddler]

I bought the Ultimate PC Interface as well, and two controllers from eBay.  One works, one doesn't--traced the problem to the wires where they join the connector for the motherboard header.  So now I'm working on replacing the connectors with DB9 connectors:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812200396

One quirk I've run into so far is that Nostalgia 5 only detects 8 directions from the disc, but jzIntv detects all 16.  So does the joystick test in Windows Control Panel.  It's either a limitation of Nostalgia, or I'm missing something in the setup.  Can anybody advise?

If you wonder why Nostalgia vs. jzIntv, it's because Nostalgia uses DirectX and thus supports the full resolution of your video adapter, and 1600x900 over HDMI looks glorious.  Whereas jzIntv supports 640x480 max and doesn't look nearly as nice.

[nick3092]

One quirk I've run into so far is that Nostalgia 5 only detects 8 directions from the disc, but jzIntv detects all 16.  So does the joystick test in Windows Control Panel.  It's either a limitation of Nostalgia, or I'm missing something in the setup.  Can anybody advise?

Windows CPL shows it hitting all 16 directions when testing the ultimate with my Intv controllers. You should be able to see it stop like midway between North and North-East, like the attached picture (I guess Up-Up-Right would be the way to describe it).  I tried Nostalgia, and it appears to only read the cardinals from a joystick.  You can't even map the disc for the joystick, only for a keyboard.  I can confirm MESS supports all 16, if you change the disc type to analog in the menu.  But It seems to be screwing up the saving of the keypad mapping cfg file.  I need to do more troubleshooting, and once I narrow it down, I'll post on the MESS board.

Anyway, I've been exchanging emails with the creator.  He wasn't aware MESS supported an analog/mouse input for the Coleco spinner/driving wheel.  So he as agreed to work on a new firmware to implement it.  Gotta love a guy who stands behind his products, and continues to improve them.

[Toddler]

nick3092, thanks for confirming what I was seeing.  I guess it's not something I'm doing wrong then in Nostalgia.  What a shame, I love Nostalgia otherwise.

Can you help me once more--what is MESS?  Maybe you can link me to the forum?  Sorry to ask and be a newbie, I am just not able to find it.

[PL1]

MESS (Multi Emulator Super System) is a sister project of MAME that emulates older game consoles and computer systems like C64, TRS-80, etc.

You can find the MESS Wiki here and and D/L the program from the MAME dev page here.


Scott

[nick3092]

I can confirm MESS supports all 16, if you change the disc type to analog in the menu.  But It seems to be screwing up the saving of the keypad mapping cfg file.  I need to do more troubleshooting, and once I narrow it down, I'll post on the MESS board.

So I did some troubleshooting, and posted my findings to the MESS forum.  One of the devs confirmed MAME/MESS gets confused when using joysticks with more than 16 buttons (at least on Windows builds - he seems to think OSX/Lnux builds handle it correctly).  Basically the enumeration appears to get all messed up starting with button 17.  And it causes MAME/MESS to incorrectly write a cfg file that renders button 17 useless (which in the case of this interface, is the #9 on the keypad of coleco or intv controllers).

The workaround is that you have to open up the menu every time you fire up MESS, and remap that button again.  It works fine while your in MESS.  But as soon as you exit out, it jacks up the cfg file.

[mega-emu.com]

If any one has a Minimus avr with a At90usb162  on it.
change the cystal to 8Mhz and program with any one of these hex files.
Then wire 2 db9 connectors to the Minimus PCB .
These hex files have been tested with bliss emulator and Blue Msx emulator for coleco.

[sharpfork]

MEGA-EMU.COM Has intellivision and colecovison usb .
Take a look.

http://mega-emu.com/ seems to be down.  What I found on google makes it look like a pretty cool project for sure!

[mega-emu.com]

My page is having problems at the moment should be up soon.

[Toddler]

nick3092, thanks for confirming what I was seeing.  I guess it's not something I'm doing wrong then in Nostalgia.  What a shame, I love Nostalgia otherwise.

I've been in contact with Joe Fisher, the author of Nostalgia, and he said he'd dig into the source code and take a look.  The creator of the Ultimate PC Interface is also involved, offering to provide Joe with whatever he needs.  Apparently he is also the creator of the Classic Game Controller and worked with Joe back in the day to get that supported, so fingers crossed I suppose.

The interface works great, and works perfectly with jzIntv.  If anybody is wondering about the quality of the product, it's great.  It's been a blast just testing these classic games.  My nine-year-old daughter saw me testing Shark! Shark! and laughed at the old-school graphics, then ended up playing Armor Battle with me for about an hour until her fingers were sore.

[nick3092]

The interface works great, and works perfectly with jzIntv.  If anybody is wondering about the quality of the product, it's great.  It's been a blast just testing these classic games.  My nine-year-old daughter saw me testing Shark! Shark! and laughed at the old-school graphics, then ended up playing Armor Battle with me for about an hour until her fingers were sore.

I will second this.  The interface works great, and the creator (Tom) has been great to work with.  As I noted in a previous post, I contacted him and he was willing to modify the firmware to add proper spinner support for the Coleco controllers supported by this device.  I've been doing testing with him, and he has the support pretty close to finished.  We are just trying to find the right sensitivity setting in the firmware that is closest to my testing on real Coleco hardware.

Now I just need to find someone that I can convince to properly fix support for buttons 17 - 31 in MAME/MESS so button 17 isn't always stomped on by the cfg files.

[degenatrons]

If any one has a Minimus avr with a At90usb162  on it.
change the cystal to 8Mhz and program with any one of these hex files.
Then wire 2 db9 connectors to the Minimus PCB .
These hex files have been tested with bliss emulator and Blue Msx emulator for coleco.

Hey,  thanks for posting the firmwares.  I have a bunch of minimus AVR's  

Shouldn't have to swap out the crystal.  You can control clock speed in firmware.  Drop the clock speed of minimus AVR by setting prescaler in first line of main program.

Code: [Select]

CPU_PRESCALE(1)
this will drop from 16mhz to 8mhz. 
We're using this technique in KADE project for PSX encoder.

[Hoopz]

Anyone tried this?

http://home.comcast.net/~tjhafner/Vision-daptor.htm

I have Shiny Tech's Classic Game Controller and an original Intellivision that still works so I'm not going to buy one now.  I'm still tempted to get it for backup in case something happens to the others.

[nick3092]

Anyone tried this?

http://home.comcast.net/~tjhafner/Vision-daptor.htm

That's the 1 controller version of the 2 controller ultimate interface discussed earlier in this thread. Made by the same guy. I bought the ultimate version. Works great for coleco and intv.

[Hoopz]

Thanks, I didn't realize that they were the same. 

Any Intellivision fans picked up these new games?  Somewhat expensive but I may pull the trigger.

http://www.elektronite.com/Default2.htm

[tommyinajar]

They still make and sell games for it? That's news. I got some freeware roms I D\L years ago. I think I saw them posted for download on a reto site. If you want them I'll look. Think it was only 5 or 6 games.

Edit: it was harder to find that it should have be, maybe I'm tired. I think they were unpublished so I assume they are legal to download.

Edit #2 Looks like they are copyrighted in the game play intro. Too bad, Robot Rubble & Yogi's Frustrations look cool.