NiGHTS pad and force feedback?

[shadow460]

Anyone know if it's possible to add force feedback to Sega's 3D control pad? Is the circuit in the pad or was it supposed to be housed in the Jump Pack?

A long time ago I read that the reason that controller's cable was detachable was so that a Jump Pack could be clipped in place using the hole in the bottom center of the pad for a latch.

I did find that Son'ys Dual Analog pad could be fitted with a rumble motor. Given the fact that Sega's Jump Pack was in the works for the Saturn, I would not be surprised if the 3D pad has what it needed to support the Jump Pack. I also wouldn't be surprised at all if it were similar to the Dreamcast Jump Pack.

[Atariman]

Hmm... I have never heard that rumor about the Saturn, but I always DID wonder why the heck they made the cord clip into the controller. I wonder if they programmed any games to utilize it? That's the most important thing to know - hardware support comes after software!

[shadow460]

After digging around a bit on the net, I believe the clip is actually a multi purpose connector. There are also rumors of a tile sensor for the pad as well. This means that the software would control whatever was in the pack according to what pack it was supposed to use. It also means that there wouldn't be any circuitry in the pad to generate force feedback, as tat signal would likely come from the console itself.

 

There are a couple of data lines that run to the controller from the Saturn. There is also a second +5V line that would probably have been used to power the extra packs. I'm not sure how the Saturn sends data back to the controllers, but I have read that the controller sends data by running four separate logic gates. That gives the controller a maximum of 16 possible controls in digital mode. I've no idea how it functions in analog mode, save for the fact the thumbstick is activated and the triggers switch into an analog mode. I think I vaguely understand how the analog mode works, but what I'm thinking of is more than I care to type out right now. Put simple, the thumbstick is x and y axis, and the triggers together are z. The pad probably tells the Saturn which axis is activated and uses one of the three remaining data configurations to send the system an analog signal that says how far the axis is activated.

 

There wouldn't need to be a return signal from a jump pack, but the tilt pack would have to take over the thumbstick's function (or at least run parallel to it). In the case of a Jump pack, you'd have the +5V line hooked to one side of a switch that's activated by one of the data lines from the system.