n00b question: 4-way vs 8-way joystick

[tito]

Thanks in advance for listening to my question.

I'm trying to build an arcade machine around my sega dreamcast and I'm stuck trying to pick out a joystick.

the joystick will be wired to the guts of an old controller where the D-pad used to be. For anyone who doesn't know, the dreamcast's D-pad works on four buttons (left-right-up-down) but can also accept diagonal motion when two adjecent directions are pressed.

so basically, my question is will a 4-way joysitck be able to send two directions at once to the guts of my controler, or will I have to wire an 8-way somehow?

[Apollo]

You need to wire an 8 way, and you do it exactly the same as you would wire a 4 way. The difference is the 8 way can hit 2 microswitches at once.

[paigeoliver]

Also. There are not any 4-way dreamcast games that I know of (probably not, since it didn't have a 4-way controller available), AND 4-way joysticks cost more than 8-ways (well, the GOOD ones do), so there would be no reason to use a 4-way for your project.

[tito]

"The difference is the 4 way can hit 2 microswitches at once"

I think that's what I want....when I move the joystick north-east, i want it to activate both the north and east directions and send those signals to the controler guts. that way it works the same way as the origonal controler did.... or am I missing something.

[paigeoliver]

That is exactly how it works Tito. Just order any 8-way sticks, and they will work fine. Each directional microswitch on the stick gets wired up to one direction on the Dreamcast pad. The 8-way sticks hit 2 directions at once on the corners, just like the dreamcast pad does.

[tito]

ahhh, i get it. the eight way doesn't have eight sensors, it is just capable of sending information for eight unique directions. I shoulda been able to guess that . Thanks a lot!