Want old-school joystick for Xbox

[shawndubya]

Hi,

My wife likes to play old-school games like pacman and galaga on my XBox, but really hates the controller and thus doesn't play much. I'm looking for a simple hand-held controller with 1 or 2 buttons which she can use. I don't mind doing a little construction work, but it seems like getting something that actually fits in your hand would be pretty difficult.  And it seems pretty overkill to build a set of arcade controls for one button (doesn't it?). Does anyone have or know of such a thing? Thanks ...

shawn.

[abrannan]

So you're looking for something like an old-school 8-bit nintendo controller that would connect to the X-box?  Shouldn't be too hard to hack that up.  

[slycrel]

  Or even better, get an old wico atari joystick and see if you can hack an xbox controller to use it's inputs and buttons.

[shawndubya]

Thanks for the replies! Ok, so the general idea is that I should start with an old joystick for whatever system (probably Atari-like) and hook it up with an old Xbox controller. With the information on this site it looks like I should be able to figure it out mostly. Any suggestion on specific joysticks to look at? Are any easier to hack than others?

[Dave_K.]

Why not just buy one of these....

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?cat=92430&dept=2636&product_id=2233975&path=0%3A2636%3A92430

[Cave]

If its a simple pad your after perhaps one of these, its only for playstation but a PSX to Xbox adapter might work.

http://www.madcatz.com/MadCatz/product_details.jsp?product_id=8202

[shawndubya]

No, that simple pad won't work -- she really wants a joystick, not a pad.

As for the full game unit, yes that might work too. However I was wanting something to plug into the xbox so that I wasn't tied to specifically those games. But seeing that each x-in-1 is only $20, it might just be easier getting that. Not sure yet, but thanks for the suggestion.

[APFelon]

If you have the time, money, and patience, you might consider hacking an X=Box controller and put in in a laptop CP. I hacked a Sidewinder to use before I converted a cab for MAME.

You need to construct the CP, and solder arcade controls onto the X-Box pad.  Might be worthy of a stocking stuffer for the SO...

APf

[aricade]

http://www.geocities.com/armad1ll0/systems/Xbox_stick.htm
This is armadillo's site... he makes a lot of desktop controls.. alternativley you could buy one from him, but you could make one yourself too...

now get hacking.....