controller mod help about converting analog flight stick to genesis digital

[northerngames]

recently accuired a nice original hd version and going to do the video and sound hack to the console but the main reason that brought me back was the helicopter strike series.

so I went and grabbed me a official genesis flight stick called the genistick and come to find out it is pretty much the same exact thing nintendo had.



looked like the perfect fit for the bill but when I got it and moved the stick I thought it was already broken lol.

there is like maybe 1/4"-1/2" of maximum pitch in all directions even a atari joy has more motion then this lol.

to make it short its a gaint D-pad with a stick instead it is horrible and sucks and not using it that way.

I remembered I had a old gravis out in the garage in a box that I used for some old star wars pc gaming and still like the design and feel over all these newer cyborg robot looking flight deals and the more scale one's that cost the same as mavericks did 

anyhow the gravis pictured is analog with two pots and was wondering if I can just solder the outer points of the pots to the genisticks digitial points on the pcb and have them pickup,

like stick the genistick pcb into the gravis setup and wire it in to the pot ends and be good to go or will it not work and have to add stuff or it just wont work at all.

I know I will loose the analog part of it but if I can get it to register at full pitch 8 way the feel should be golden.

I just want the genistck guts in the gravis and have the gravis stick pickup on the genistick pcb to sum it all up.



if I can pull it off I think I have the best stick for geni ever, it has all 3 seperate buttons on the stick in the perfect spots for the strike games and I can use the 2 buttons on the base by using one for start and the for the turbo function.

[northerngames]

well I played with the genistick in stock form and it's not too bad after all.

I just assumed it was going to be horrible going by the feel itself.

I think I am going to leave this one be as it is in great shape still but I am also going to pickup another and see if I cannot blend the two and come out with something better with the gravis.

I have not played jungle strike in probably15 years and went through the first 4 levels without being shot down and stopped playing there for the night so I still got my choppa skills after all these years 

[northerngames]

so I dont like the layout for the strike series and funny I mentioned it looking exactly like the nes quik shot.

I opened it up to swap the thumb buttons so I can have the trigger as the mini the left thumb as the med rocket and the right as the large for some reason those two are backward with any setting in stock form.

but anyhow when I opened it sure enough it actually has quikshot pcb throughout and stamped right on the pcb.

they were a 3rd party nes controller but made official for sega 

[SavannahLion]

The older three button genesis controller used a 2:1 multiplexer (A 74HC157). The six button version used an ASIC that emulated the 74HC157 in one mode and used a convoluted pseudo 74HC157 scheme in another. I won't bother going into details on it.

The point is, if you search for a 74HC157 data sheet you can figure out how the whole thing works.

In a nutshell. it's digital and naturally susceptible to the weirdness digital stuff sometimes encounter.

However, despite what people will say, SEGA designed the thing to be scarily flexible. I have a couple of ideas that might work, but I can't figure out where I put my data sheets so I can't check the math on it.

Originally, I was thinking a 4v-ish Zener but then I remembered it's a voltage divider where the voltage is 0 for left and +5 for right for example. So without going through some voltage acrobatics, I would suggest either..

Hacking the controller apart and adding switches. Bleh IMHO.

Hack a Genesis controller and do the wiring. Again.. bleh.... A waste of a perfectly good controller IMHO.

I toyed with this particular idea but never tested the circuit. I can present the schematic (if I can find it) for peer review but the theory is pretty simple. Use something like a single LM348, or two LM1458, or four LM741's. The idea depends on the joystick using two analog pots with the voltage divided (like I mentioned above). You would need eight resisters of suitable values or four resistors and four trim pots (I would do this to create a proper "dead" zone and tweak edge to edge responsiveness). The OpAmps are to create a pair of Schmitt triggers, two inverting, two non-inverting. Depending on the pinout, you wouldn't even need to hack the Genesis controllers. Purchase a 74HC157 and suitable resistors/diodes and the whole damn thing can be built right into the controller or as an adapter box/cable.

Buy and code your own adapter using something like an Teensie and the Ardunio platform.

[northerngames]

that would be great if it works.

maybe make a dedicated strike bartop out of it when said and done.

I got the controls swapped around like I wanted so that all feels better.

so the stocker is not as bad as I thought but it's not all that great either but the modded gravis would be the 

I also ordered the stuff for the s-video and stereo mod but now I am leaning more toward tapping the straight rgb composite sync and going with one of these on a 17" lcd.

 http://www.ebay.com/itm/321056801934?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

that should work and look far better then s-video I would think.

not sure why I am going all in on the genesis all of the sudden 20+ years later either 

guess I wont need a ps4 anytime soon