Main > Consoles

question about hacking gamepads...

<< < (2/2)

hulkster:
only bad thing is that you can only use one controller with it!  but i guess you can buy two and then take care of that right?

crsdawg:
"Just wanted to point out that the n64 contoller works extremely well for N64, SNES and NES emulation, and keeps me from having 6 different console gamepads"

completely valid statement, and will work fine in many(if not most cases), but for me the whole point is that i want 6 different controllers. playing atari/genesis/nes with a n64 controller just doesn't feel right. i want to play the games the same way i did 15-20 years ago(and earlier with 2600,geez).

that's be beauty of having so many different solutions to the problem of adapting the old controllers to a pc. lots of choices, and everybody should be able to find something that works for them.

HempHacker:
The parallel port method is older, so it's more mature, but I've read that support under WinXP & Win2K isn't that great yet. I'm more into the USB stuff. PSX and N64 are probably the most common USB adapters, but there's also a few adapters for the GameCube and some others I think. The NES, SNES, Genesis are more rare, and as far as I know the NES is the only of those 3 that you can actually buy adapters for so far. Adapters for SNES and Genesis exist, and will probably begin selling this month, but haven't yet. The NES adapter can be bought at this website http://www.sealiecomputing.com/retrozone/ (note that he sells controllers with the adapter inside the controller, but you could buy the kit and make an adapter with an NES plug, so that you can use any of your NES controllers on it) I'm working on an adapter that's designed for multiple controllers and will work well with cabs, etc... It's USB, but it'll also have a DB15 connector. The DB15 will be where modules plug in so that you can swap between any supported controller (I'm trying to support as many controllers as possible, especially older ones), and the adapter will do all the configuring of the buttons. You should (in theory) only have to set the buttons up once, then leave the adapter plugged in. I'm trying to map all the buttons so that, for example all the start buttons will be the same on all controllers. Also I'm planning on releasing my code open source (probably later this year), so that others can add controllers, and keep prices down. My website is http://www.angelfire.com/electronic2/hemphacker There's another website that's doing something similar to my project, but I don't know that much detail, except they're asking something like $80 for an adapter with a module. Their website is http://www.blackchopper.com/index.php

Zathras:
I was wondering this exact same thing myself - looks like there are many ways to skin a cat.  I've been considering the rewiring for a keyboard encoder method but it would be nice to plug in any controller for system X and have it work.

Definately keep the board posted HempHacker your adapter-mabob sounds great!

Zathras:
Just wanted to add that I ended up purchasing a round of the Retrozone controllers:

NES - USB
SNES - USB
Atari adapter
Genesis adapter

I haven't had a chance to use the Atari/Genesis adapters yet but the NES and SNES pads work great - just plug and play and they feel perfect.  I was able to configure the emulators so that they can accept input from either the control panel or the pad.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page