Duel Stelladaptors! (to use Atari 2600 controllers on my cab)

[blind_dado]

I incorporated these two Stelladaptors into the front of my cab, under the keyboard tray.  Now two people can play classic Atari games with the original controllers.  Head-to-head Warlords with the paddles is awesome!  And playing Adventure with an Atari joystick really evokes some strong memories.







Limited supply of Stelladaptors still available:
http://www.atariage.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=267

[TheShanMan]

Nice! I was thinking about doing something along these lines but the adapters are a little on the expensive side, so when you have to get 2, and you don't have the joysticks and paddles yet either, I just haven't been able to justify it. Not so much a big deal for the joysticks, but I really wish I could use authentic paddles for games like circus.

Anybody have 2 stelladapters they want to sell cheap?

[ahofle]

Very cool.
Just curious, what 2600 emulator do you use for paddle support?

[blind_dado]

As an alternative, there is a DIY kit for $17 that requires some soldering available here:

http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=25&products_id=46



Unfortunetly, it only works for Joysticks and does not recognize paddles.  Plus you have to buy a DB9 solder pot and a project box to put it in.  Might as well just get the Stelladapter!
 

[blind_dado]

I use Stella.  (Hence, the "Stelladaptor.")  It works like a charm.  It think MESS works pretty well too.

[Congui]

I've used Stella before, but prefer Z26. 

Last time I used stella I could only use 1 paddle, but with Z26 both paddles worked great (kicked my brother's behind in Kaboom).

Cheers,
Congui.

[TheShanMan]

As an alternative, there is a DIY kit for $17 that requires some soldering available here:

http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=25&products_id=46



Unfortunetly, it only works for Joysticks and does not recognize paddles.  Plus you have to buy a DB9 solder pot and a project box to put it in.  Might as well just get the Stelladapter!
 

Yeah, saw this one. About a week ago I was researching any possible options - diy or pre-built. Unfortunately stelladapter seems to be the only option for paddles as far as I can tell. It's too bad they don't offer dual ports in a single package for like 50% more. I might bite on something like that.

[chiLLbiLLy]

Hmmmm.  So, say you already have two dedicated spinners wired on your control panel.  In theory, shouldn't you be able to use two stelladaptors, with Atari paddles connected, and then be able to play 4 player Warlords (the arcade version) in Mame, using Windows XP, with everyone having their own independent control?

If so, then that just might be a decent alternative to actually going crazy and mounting 4 spinners on your control panel (assuming you're a Warlords nut and are just dying to play with 3 or 4 people, of course).

[Congui]

A while ago I tried to make the atari paddle work with mame, but had no luck; joysticks work fine.  But if anyone has, please do tell how (I'm using mame .102).

Cheers,
Congui.

[TheShanMan]

Hmmmm.  So, say you already have two dedicated spinners wired on your control panel.  In theory, shouldn't you be able to use two stelladaptors, with Atari paddles connected, and then be able to play 4 player Warlords (the arcade version) in Mame, using Windows XP, with everyone having their own independent control?

If so, then that just might be a decent alternative to actually going crazy and mounting 4 spinners on your control panel (assuming you're a Warlords nut and are just dying to play with 3 or 4 people, of course).

I would think the paddles are closer to a single axis analog joystick than a spinner, since they have limited travel.

I wonder if paddles could be made to interface with Ultimarc's u-hid? Not cheaper than a couple of stelladapters of course, but if you're thinking of the u-hid for input anyway, then it might be a worthwhile solution. Now whether or not paddles interfaced through a u-hid would work with the 2600 emulators would be another question.

[SavannahLion]

Hmmmm.  So, say you already have two dedicated spinners wired on your control panel.  In theory, shouldn't you be able to use two stelladaptors, with Atari paddles connected, and then be able to play 4 player Warlords (the arcade version) in Mame, using Windows XP, with everyone having their own independent control?

If so, then that just might be a decent alternative to actually going crazy and mounting 4 spinners on your control panel (assuming you're a Warlords nut and are just dying to play with 3 or 4 people, of course).

I would think the paddles are closer to a single axis analog joystick than a spinner, since they have limited travel.

I wonder if paddles could be made to interface with Ultimarc's u-hid? Not cheaper than a couple of stelladapters of course, but if you're thinking of the u-hid for input anyway, then it might be a worthwhile solution. Now whether or not paddles interfaced through a u-hid would work with the 2600 emulators would be another question.

I thought the same thing but with an A-pac V1. The wiring diagram at Ultimarc seems to show the Left/Right & Up/Down pins connected to what would be the V/G on the pot with the wiper commonly tied to to "D". It seems to be incompatible with the Atari Paddles since they use shared +5v/G lines and the wipers(?) are on their own lines.  I tried to look at wiring examples for the U-HID, but for the cost, there's not much incentive to look into it further.

[chiLLbiLLy]

I noticed on the Stelladaptor website, that they are claiming that the 2600 paddles will work in Mame32.  Of course, we know that Mame32 was renamed sometime back, and is now called MameUI, so I don't know if they are claiming that the stelladaptors will only work with an old version of Mame32 or they just haven't updated their specs page in a good while.

Since we're really only talking about possible use with Warlords here (are there any other 3 or 4 player spinner games?), I don't suppose it would be that big a deal to use an old version of Mame32, in order to be able to use the paddles, unless there's some compatibility issues I'm not thinking about.

Oh, and I forgot that there are actually 2 paddles that are connected to a single controller port, so if I already have 2 spinners on my cab, then in theory, I would only need one stelladaptor to hook up a set of 2 paddles to, in order to play 4 player Warlords.  Now I just wonder if the paddles really are compatible with MameUI/Mame32...     

[blind_dado]

I looked into this this evening and got the paddles to work with MAME using the Stelladapters no problem.  I have Warlords set up for four players like so:
Player 1: Spinner
Player 2: Paddle 1 (Stelladaptor x-axis)
Player 3: Paddle 2 (Stelladaptor y-axis)
Player 4: Trackball (better than nothing!)

I'm running MameUI, so I can confirm that the Stelladaptors work with that.  There really is no configuration to speak of, it just works.  All you have to do is hit tab in MAME and go into the controls for that game and set up the analog controls.  It's that easy.  If I had two sets of paddles that would be even better!

[chiLLbiLLy]

Hey!  I was hoping that someone who had the adaptors and paddles would actually test them out, so thanks for doing that.   

It's good to hear that the paddles do work, at least with MameIU/Mame32.  I know it's kinda of a wonky way to do it, but at least the option is there, for those with a 2 player cab, to be able to handle 3 or 4 player Warlords, in a pinch.

I was thinking this might also work for other 3 or 4 player driving/racing games like Demolition Derby or Super Off Road, which I hadn't really thought of until now, but then I just remembered that the paddles don't have a full 360 degrees of rotation, so that won't work.  Perhaps with racing games, as the range of motion needed is much less, but certainly not something like Demo Derby.

[Congui]

Just tried out; I have two stelladaptor and a mouse and it works:
Player 1: mouse
Player 2: Axis 1
Player 3: Axis 2

As you can see, the atari paddles are recognized as a joystick.  I'm using Mameplus .103 (commandline not mameui).  And here is part of my mame.ini:
### Input device options ###
mouse                   1
joystick                1
lightgun                0
dual_lightgun           0
offscreen_reload        0
steadykey               0
keyboard_leds           1
led_mode                ps/2
a2d_deadzone            0.300000
ctrlr                   Standard
stickpoint              0
joyid1                  0
joyid2                  1
joyid3                  2
joyid4                  3
joyid5                  4
joyid6                  5
joyid7                  6
joyid8                  7
paddle_device           joystick

If you have mameplus, pong also works with the paddles.

Cheers,
Congui

[telengard]

I incorporated these two Stelladaptors into the front of my cab, under the keyboard tray.  Now two people can play classic Atari games with the original controllers.  Head-to-head Warlords with the paddles is awesome!  And playing Adventure with an Atari joystick really evokes some strong memories.

Limited supply of Stelladaptors still available:
http://www.atariage.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=267

Awesome!        

The Stelladaptor is great because it supports all of the *other* 2600 controllers too.  I haven't been able to find anything like it.

~telengard