Wico woes

[Jess Ragan]

Aiigh! I managed to find an old Wico Command Control joystick at my parents' house during my last visit, and even a Y-cable. Sounds good so far, right? Well, there's just one problem. The Y-cable I've got has a 15-pin plug on one end, and two 15-pin plugs on the other end. Of course, the Wico Command Control has a 9-pin plug, making it impossible to plug it into the Y-cable (and making me wonder how the hell I used the damn thing in the first place).

 

So what do I do? I'm looking at the cable and there doesn't appear to be anything special about it... there's no room for any microprocessors or integrated circuits. Can I solve the problem by connecting a 15-pin to 9-pin adapter like this one into the end of the Y-cable?

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/15-Pin-to-9-Pin-Adapte...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

JR

[Jess Ragan]

http://emu-docs.org/Atari%205200/Controllers/5200cont.html

 

I just found this! I might be able to build an adapter of my own... it doesn't look too tough.

 

JR

[cyberfluxor]

So you have a Y-cable with a 15-pin OUT and two 15-pin INs? That sounds like some sort of multi-tap more than a way to split the two portions of the controller. One should be 9-pin for the stick and 15-pin for the numberic pad. I could see the potential of having a 2-IN 15-pin Y cables to allow 4-player abilities on a 2-port system, which would be cool but doubt it's possible as you'd cancle out certain buttons on another players controller to allow multi-tapping on a single port.

 

Anyhow, I'm still too knew with the 5200 to give the best advice and would bet you know more anyhow this anyhow. I still don't have a working Atari 5200 controller and without those Wico's I got I'd be screwed!

Edited August 17, 2007 by cyberfluxor

[Jess Ragan]

No, actually! The two 15-pin female cables plug into both ports on the 5200. Then there's a single 15-pin male cable which plugs into... I don't know what the hell it plugs into, actually! It's the craziest thing I've ever seen, and I don't know how it's supposed to work.

[mimo]

it goes the other way round, so you can use one joystick for 2 player games

[+Mitch]

Are you sure it's not a PC joystick Y cable?

 

Mitch

[Jess Ragan]

Wait, I think you're right! That was confusing the heck out of me.

[Prodos8]

As long as its straight through it could be used as a reverse y cable on the 5200 allowing two players to share one controller. Of course it would only be useful on games that alternate turns.

[lowscore]

I may be misconstruing what I read in your initial question, but do you have a photo of the joystick. If it has a 9 pin plug, I suspect that it is for a 2600. The 5200 Wico would have a 15 pin plug, IIRC.

[lowscore]

Does your stick look like this?:

or does it look like this?:

[Jess Ragan]

It's the bottom stick, but it does indeed have a 9-pin end. Great foresight there, Wico!

[+remowilliams]

It's the bottom stick, but it does indeed have a 9-pin end. Great foresight there, Wico!

The adapter needed for a 9pin Wico has a DB15 (on the 5200 end) and a DB9 and DB15 on the other to hook up that stick and a 5200 stick at the same time (for its keypad buttons).

 

Or you hook the stick in the the Wico 'Control' piece which eliminates the need for the 5200 stick, and the adapter.

 

[cyberfluxor]

Well, with my Wico I can do one of two things:

1) Plug the keypad into port 1 (15-pin), then plug the joystick into the back of the keypad (9-pin).

2) Plug my 15-pin Y-cable into port 1, then plug the joystick into the 9-pin cap and the keypad into the 15-pin cap.

 

#2 works just fine and is good because it pretty much extends your distance from the system, plus it gives you more set-up space between the joystick and keypad.

[Prodos8]

Or you hook the stick in the the Wico 'Control' piece which eliminates the need for the 5200 stick, and the adapter.

Can you use overlays with the bad boy?

[AtariRocks]

Or you hook the stick in the the Wico 'Control' piece which eliminates the need for the 5200 stick, and the adapter.

Can you use overlays with the bad boy?

 

Yeah you can use overlays with it

[BIGHMW]

I myself use the Wico Keypad with a Redemption 5200 2600/Sega adapter for use with either my Wico 2600 "red-ball" stick for regular games like Pac-Man or Space Dungeon, or, the Atari 2600 Trak-ball for Centipede and Millipede, but, this setup won't work with either Missile Command or Super Breakout as they rely on the analog "feel" of the stock or Wico 5200 stick (if set to "non-centering"), which leaves me no other choice but to use the 5200 Trak-ball in whick the fire buttons are a bit inconsistant and suspect in critical situations (MIRV's in Missile Command, repetitive fire mode in Centipede/Millipede, etc)

 

To get back on the subject of the Wico keypad brought up earlier, imagine this touch-tone-quality bad boy being used with a stick for either Star Raiders or Space Shuttle where you can have three persons participate, "Star Trek" style (not the game), where one could fly the star cruiser and activate the photons with the stick, one could activate the defense controls with the very-reliable Wico keypad, and one can play "Captain Kirk" and command the action (easy chair anybody?)

 

Pretty cool, huh?

Edited August 27, 2007 by BIGHMW