Using Atari 7800 trackball on a 5200

[phonedork]

I was looking at the atari 7800 trackball, and it just looks more compact and sleek. I am using a wico command stick with that wire that allows you to hook up your wico stick to your existing 5200 controllers to use the number key pads. It is a Y-Adapter that has a 5200 end for the keypad on a real 5200 controller and a second connection similar to the atari 2600 and 7800. The actual 5200 wico stick has a 2600 end. Now I know when I hook a 2600 controller in that wico cable it does not work with 5200 games. I am thinking because it is not analog. My theory is the 7800 trackball is analog and it would recognize it with the wico adapter cable. Dont know about the fire buttond though. Has anyone tried this?

[Prodos8]

Try it out and see. Most likely the pinout is wrong so you'd need some sort of adapter.

 

Here's a link for 5200/wico y-cable pinout: http://emu-docs.org/Atari%205200/Controllers/5200cont.html

 

I use sega pads/atari joystick just fine w/my wico y-cable.

[PacManPlus]

I wonder if you can use an inverter somehow to make a 'project box' like the above picture for the 2600 paddles (so you don't have to re-solder the wire to the other terminal in the paddle itself)...

Edited February 1, 2008 by PacManPlus

[Prodos8]

I wonder if you can use an inverter somehow to make a 'project box' like the above picture for the 2600 paddles (so you don't have to re-solder the wire to the other terminal in the paddle itself)...

Though I've not tried it, I think if you wired pot-common to the track and h-pot to the wiper (instead of the opposite) the paddle would work correctly w/the 5200.

[SRGilbert]

Seems like a lot of effort to avoid using what is arguably the best trackball ever made for ANY system. Still, I can appreciate the curiousity of seeing if it can be done.

Edited February 1, 2008 by SRGilbert

[Prodos8]

Seems like a lot of effort to avoid using what is arguably the best trackball ever made for ANY system. Still, I can appreciate the curiousity of seeing if it can be done.

Yeah, as far as the trak-ball controller imo nothing beats it except maybe an 'arcade' quality mechanism.

[phonedork]

Try it out and see. Most likely the pinout is wrong so you'd need some sort of adapter.

 

Here's a link for 5200/wico y-cable pinout: http://emu-docs.org/Atari%205200/Controllers/5200cont.html

 

I use sega pads/atari joystick just fine w/my wico y-cable.

 

Wow! How did you make that nifty little device to plug your sega pads in the Y adapter? Is that stuff you can get from radio shack? Dont get me wrong, I like the 5200 trackball. The 2 things I do hate about it is..... Number one the size! It is a beast. The Atari 7800 version is smaller. Second do I really need two sets of number pads on it? This makes the trackball larger then what it could have been. Using a Y adapter would make use of the keypads seperate from the trackball if the 7800 version was compatible. I like the smaller design of the 7800 trackball, but I like centipede on the 5200 better then the 7800. Although I like the 2 player option.

[ApolloBoy]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned that there was never a Trak-Ball specifically made for the 7800. I assume you've got a CX80, which was actually styled to match the XL computers.

[Jess Ragan]

Yeah, that kind of surprised me too! "Atari 7800 trackball? Wha-?"

 

What do you guys think about the Sega Sports Pad? It's a trackball that was released for the Master System back in the mid 1980's. I've got one in my collection somewhere, but the wires came loose and I wound up storing it in a tool shed. Now that I know how to fix the controller, I might give it another chance.

[Bakasama]

There's a trakball for the 7800? I think that never got built, I've seen the schematics for that. I suppose one could modify an existing Atari trakball controller to have a second button that works with the 7800. Such a controller might come in handy for a 7800 version of Missile Command or Crystal Castle.

[phonedork]

There's a trakball for the 7800? I think that never got built, I've seen the schematics for that. I suppose one could modify an existing Atari trakball controller to have a second button that works with the 7800. Such a controller might come in handy for a 7800 version of Missile Command or Crystal Castle.

 

 

This is the one I saw on Atari 2600 online.....

 

 

It is the CX80, I guess its compatible

[kenfused]

There's a trakball for the 7800? I think that never got built, I've seen the schematics for that. I suppose one could modify an existing Atari trakball controller to have a second button that works with the 7800. Such a controller might come in handy for a 7800 version of Missile Command or Crystal Castle.

The source I used for centipede trackball hack even had code already in there to handle the non-existent 7800 trackball. I don't know if the released centipede has it or not but I think Curt has put up the atari schematics for it and some for converting the one of the existing trackballs. I think the main thing it does it reduces the cpu requirement of the console a little bit to read it.

Edited February 3, 2008 by kenfused

[BigO]

I was looking at the atari 7800 trackball, and it just looks more compact and sleek. I am using a wico command stick with that wire that allows you to hook up your wico stick to your existing 5200 controllers to use the number key pads. It is a Y-Adapter that has a 5200 end for the keypad on a real 5200 controller and a second connection similar to the atari 2600 and 7800. The actual 5200 wico stick has a 2600 end. Now I know when I hook a 2600 controller in that wico cable it does not work with 5200 games. I am thinking because it is not analog. My theory is the 7800 trackball is analog and it would recognize it with the wico adapter cable. Dont know about the fire buttond though. Has anyone tried this?

 

I think your theory about a 7800 (compatible) trackball may be off track. I believe the 2600 compatible track ball controllers emulate a digital joystick (and may have a second mode that puts out a different sort of pulse sequence.) I would expect a 7800 compatible trackball to emulate a digital joystick as the 7800, like the 2600 uses digital joysticks.

 

If you had a Master Play or similar adapter that let you use digital joysticks on a 5200, then I'd imagine that plugging a 2600 compatible trackball into that would work, second button issues aside. It wouldn't give you the incremental analog style control that the 5200 trackball does.

 

The 5200 trackball emulates the 5200 analog joystick by outputting a variable voltage proportional to the speed that the ball is spun. At least that's what my oscilloscope told me when I was repairing a 5200 trackball. It's essentially a tachometer.

[Bakasama]

The source I used for centipede trackball hack even had code already in there to handle the non-existent 7800 trackball. I don't know if the released centipede has it or not but I think Curt has put up the atari schematics for it and some for converting the one of the existing trackballs. I think the main thing it does it reduces the cpu requirement of the pc a little bit to read it.

 

Yeah, I did wonder if the proposed 7800 trackball was just a joystick that happen to have a ball or was it a real trakball. The source seems to prove that it was a real trackball.

Edited February 3, 2008 by Bakasama

[phuzaxeman]

I was looking at the atari 7800 trackball, and it just looks more compact and sleek. I am using a wico command stick with that wire that allows you to hook up your wico stick to your existing 5200 controllers to use the number key pads. It is a Y-Adapter that has a 5200 end for the keypad on a real 5200 controller and a second connection similar to the atari 2600 and 7800. The actual 5200 wico stick has a 2600 end. Now I know when I hook a 2600 controller in that wico cable it does not work with 5200 games. I am thinking because it is not analog. My theory is the 7800 trackball is analog and it would recognize it with the wico adapter cable. Dont know about the fire buttond though. Has anyone tried this?

while a curious question, most people wouldn't even think about using a 2600/7800 trackball if they played the 5200 trackball. the 5200 trackball is arguably one of the best trackballs ever built.

 

if a developer could make a "golden tee" on the 5200...that would be cool!

[joeybastard]

Yeah, that kind of surprised me too! "Atari 7800 trackball? Wha-?"

 

What do you guys think about the Sega Sports Pad? It's a trackball that was released for the Master System back in the mid 1980's. I've got one in my collection somewhere, but the wires came loose and I wound up storing it in a tool shed. Now that I know how to fix the controller, I might give it another chance.

 

The Sega pad seems pretty nice. I have a screwed up one I've been meaning to open up and have a look at but just never got around to it because I have no SMS game that uses it. When I tried the pad on the 7800 with Centipede, it didn't work right.

[BigO]

The source I used for centipede trackball hack even had code already in there to handle the non-existent 7800 trackball. I don't know if the released centipede has it or not but I think Curt has put up the atari schematics for it and some for converting the one of the existing trackballs. I think the main thing it does it reduces the cpu requirement of the console a little bit to read it.

 

Did you get a good sense of what sort of signals it was expecting from the trackball? Can you tell if it was expecting to track actual Gray code state changes or some other identifiable scheme?

[kenfused]

The source I used for centipede trackball hack even had code already in there to handle the non-existent 7800 trackball. I don't know if the released centipede has it or not but I think Curt has put up the atari schematics for it and some for converting the one of the existing trackballs. I think the main thing it does it reduces the cpu requirement of the console a little bit to read it.

 

Did you get a good sense of what sort of signals it was expecting from the trackball? Can you tell if it was expecting to track actual Gray code state changes or some other identifiable scheme?

 

I would have to look since it has been a while. The schematics on atarimuseum shows that it has two 8-bit counters built into it. I think it does most of the tracking and you just read current values for it (don't recall how many bits at once). Keeps you from having to read the thing many times in a frame.

[Charlie_]

There's a trakball for the 7800? I think that never got built, I've seen the schematics for that. I suppose one could modify an existing Atari trakball controller to have a second button that works with the 7800. Such a controller might come in handy for a 7800 version of Missile Command or Crystal Castle.

 

 

This is the one I saw on Atari 2600 online.....

 

 

It is the CX80, I guess its compatible

 

I have that Trackball controller. There is a switch on the back to choose JS or TB.

[BigO]

The source I used for centipede trackball hack even had code already in there to handle the non-existent 7800 trackball. I don't know if the released centipede has it or not but I think Curt has put up the atari schematics for it and some for converting the one of the existing trackballs. I think the main thing it does it reduces the cpu requirement of the console a little bit to read it.

 

Did you get a good sense of what sort of signals it was expecting from the trackball? Can you tell if it was expecting to track actual Gray code state changes or some other identifiable scheme?

 

I would have to look since it has been a while. The schematics on atarimuseum shows that it has two 8-bit counters built into it. I think it does most of the tracking and you just read current values for it (don't recall how many bits at once). Keeps you from having to read the thing many times in a frame.

 

That's interesting. I guess you could read 4 bits at a time pretty easily. I'll have to check out that schematic and see if I can make sense of it.

[TunnelRunner]

Okay kids, we all know that's just a sleek 2600 TB. 7800 never actually got any peripherals released.

[+Allan]

I wonder how hard it would be to rewire a 2600 trackball with a 7800 Proline wire so that you could get both buttons working like on a proline?

 

Allan

[ApolloBoy]

I wonder how hard it would be to rewire a 2600 trackball with a 7800 Proline wire so that you could get both buttons working like on a proline?

 

Allan

 

Shouldn't be too hard, considering that both the Pro-Line and the CX80 use the same fire button boards.

[SRGilbert]

I wonder how hard it would be to rewire a 2600 trackball with a 7800 Proline wire so that you could get both buttons working like on a proline?

 

Allan

 

Shouldn't be too hard, considering that both the Pro-Line and the CX80 use the same fire button boards.

Yeah, but the two buttons are on opposite sides of the trakball, how could you use both of them?

Edited February 9, 2008 by SRGilbert