question about hacking gamepads...

[hulkster]

alright, like many people i have nes, snes, genesis, etc. roms on my cab.  and ive been using my happ controls to play these games.  however, i was wondering if i wanted dedicated gamepads for these games.  like nes pad for nes games, snes pad for snes games, etc....does it require soldering and opening up the pads themselves, or can i just cut wire and then wire it up to some kind of connector?  usb or serial?  

i did some searching already and didnt really find what i was looking for (so dont jump on me about not doing research first...i may have searched for the wrong thing) and i looked in the "alternatives" section to the right and didnt really find anything cuz the links are dead.  so can anyone help me out?  basically...how much crap do i have to go through to interface my console controllers (n64, snes, nes) to my cab using  emulators, not the console itself to play the games?

[Gideon]

Well, first I'll compliment your good taste; original controllers are the way to go.

Secondly, there are basically two options:  One is more of a traditional "hack" and the other operates mostly on the software level.  The former may be done a variety of ways but is most often achieved using the parallel port.  Such a hack involves the use of a circuit that can both interpret and convert the data sent by the SNES controller, so that the parallel port can access it using special drivers.  In addition to the parallel port, and interesting option would be a keyboard hack.

However, if your balls cringe at the thought of doing the drudge work of hacking--disassembling, soldering, testing, etc--USB convertors are the new fad.  You can find them in a lot of places, particularly for the N64.  Here's a link that I snatched with a quick google.

Oh, and don't worry about being accused of not doing research:  This site is virtually devoid of any useful console info.  So, good luck!  I hope you get things the way you want them to be.

[hulkster]

wow thanks for the info!  i really appreciate it.  yeah, im not much on soldering and hacking and all that.  id rather go the usb route.  will i lose any accuracy with the usb way?  are their any drawbacks despite it being the more pricey way out (i assume)

[crsdawg]

i'll also mention another method(well actually pretty close to  one of the ones listed above). you will need to basically rewire your controller, but it's pretty simple.

link here

this is a page i put together(still a work in progress) to demonstrate how i handled the problem. i ended up with use of atari(and most early controllers), nes, and genesis controllers. they will use whichever type of controller interface you already have for mame.

[SpamMe]

I'm also adapter-inclined, and bought the cheap $10 n64 adapters (as opposed to the $30 adaptoids) from www.jandaman.com.
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 .

[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.