16 way joysticks
Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:13 am
Hi All,
Now I'm in the closing stages of building my keyboard replacement, I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on replacement joysticks?
My thoughts were to make a PCB to go inside cheap chinese repro Genesis controllers. Pull out the existing board. Drop in a new one. Done!
The "unique" hardware of the Creativision does raise some questions though:
Does any of the software in the library take advantage of the 16 way joysticks? If not, can I substitute a simple 4 button, 8 way joystick or will diagonals stop working in those cases? (Eg, is the diagonal registered as 1 button (Diagonal up-left) or as the combination of 2 (up + left))
Does any game assign a different function to left / right button? They're wired to different inputs but if nothing cares, I don't see any point in touching something that's not broken.
The only game I've seen that uses any other buttons on the actual keyboard area, other than the "Start" button, is Tank Attack (Also uses "Lay Mine"). Anyone aware of any others?
I'll probably end up prototyping something on breadboard in the next few months (When I have a weekend free :-/ ) to see if I can build a simplte test system.
Sorry, lots of questions. I'd eventually like it if we had "open source" replacements for the controllers, as they're only going to keep failing on us as time goes on. Also, let's face it, they're about as "ergonomic" as a house brick.
Cheers!
Chesh
Now I'm in the closing stages of building my keyboard replacement, I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on replacement joysticks?
My thoughts were to make a PCB to go inside cheap chinese repro Genesis controllers. Pull out the existing board. Drop in a new one. Done!
The "unique" hardware of the Creativision does raise some questions though:
Does any of the software in the library take advantage of the 16 way joysticks? If not, can I substitute a simple 4 button, 8 way joystick or will diagonals stop working in those cases? (Eg, is the diagonal registered as 1 button (Diagonal up-left) or as the combination of 2 (up + left))
Does any game assign a different function to left / right button? They're wired to different inputs but if nothing cares, I don't see any point in touching something that's not broken.
The only game I've seen that uses any other buttons on the actual keyboard area, other than the "Start" button, is Tank Attack (Also uses "Lay Mine"). Anyone aware of any others?
I'll probably end up prototyping something on breadboard in the next few months (When I have a weekend free :-/ ) to see if I can build a simplte test system.
Sorry, lots of questions. I'd eventually like it if we had "open source" replacements for the controllers, as they're only going to keep failing on us as time goes on. Also, let's face it, they're about as "ergonomic" as a house brick.
Cheers!
Chesh