Moding a CX-40 joystick for the 5200

[atari52]

I don't know if this can be done,But I got a brain storm the other day. I was thinking,could I remove the stock cable from a CX-40 joystick,and replace it with the stock cable,from the 5200 controller? I would just take the direction wires,along with the fire buttons, from the 5200 cable,and rig them to the CX-40 Bord. I know that I will not be able to use the pause or reset wires,without adding a switch of some kind. I, think that this would work for games like pac-man. This would also solve the no centering issue. The main Question is, will the 5200 let you do this this?Will the 5200 system know if, the pause and reset wires,are not connected? I, remember that some 2600 games would only play when you pressed the fire button. You did not need the reset switch on the console to start a game. So this is why I would take the fire wires from the 5200 cable and mod them to the fire wire termnal on the CX-40 bord.Once again,Would the 5200 system allow you to do this? Does the 5200 know? Can this be done? By doing this, I can use the standerd Atari 5200 plug. I, should be able to just plug the CX-40 into the 5200 system. I know that this will not work for all games, but It should work for the games,that need a centering joystick. If this does work, could someone mod me a pause and rested switch? Any help would be great. Thanks.

[82atari5200]

I don't know if this can be done,But I got a brain storm the other day. I was thinking,could I remove the stock cable from a CX-40 joystick,and replace it with the stock cable,from the 5200 controller? I would just take the direction wires,along with the fire buttons, from the 5200 cable,and rig them to the CX-40 Bord. I know that I will not be able to use the pause or reset wires,without adding a switch of some kind. I, think that this would work for games like pac-man. This would also solve the no centering issue. The main Question is, will the 5200 let you do this this?Will the 5200 system know if, the pause and reset wires,are not connected? I, remember that some 2600 games would only play when you pressed the fire button. You did not need the reset switch on the console to start a game. So this is why I would take the fire wires from the 5200 cable and mod them to the fire wire termnal on the CX-40 bord.Once again,Would the 5200 system allow you to do this? Does the 5200 know? Can this be done? By doing this, I can use the standerd Atari 5200 plug. I, should be able to just plug the CX-40 into the 5200 system. I know that this will not work for all games, but It should work for the games,that need a centering joystick. If this does work, could someone mod me a pause and rested switch? Any help would be great. Thanks.

5200 is analog. 2600 is digital. there are circuit boards you can build to connect the one to the other. You're better off finding a working 5200 controller and get used to it's unique characteristics and you'll never go back to the stiff 2600 single button controller.

[bohoki]

I don't know if this can be done,But I got a brain storm the other day. I was thinking,could I remove the stock cable from a CX-40 joystick,and replace it with the stock cable,from the 5200 controller? I would just take the direction wires,along with the fire buttons, from the 5200 cable,and rig them to the CX-40 Bord. I know that I will not be able to use the pause or reset wires,without adding a switch of some kind. I, think that this would work for games like pac-man. This would also solve the no centering issue. The main Question is, will the 5200 let you do this this?Will the 5200 system know if, the pause and reset wires,are not connected? I, remember that some 2600 games would only play when you pressed the fire button. You did not need the reset switch on the console to start a game. So this is why I would take the fire wires from the 5200 cable and mod them to the fire wire termnal on the CX-40 bord.Once again,Would the 5200 system allow you to do this? Does the 5200 know? Can this be done? By doing this, I can use the standerd Atari 5200 plug. I, should be able to just plug the CX-40 into the 5200 system. I know that this will not work for all games, but It should work for the games,that need a centering joystick. If this does work, could someone mod me a pause and rested switch? Any help would be great. Thanks.

 

 

not without some active circuitry to turn the down and right diretions into a 500kohm resistance

 

5200 needs 2 buttons

 

if i may make a suggestion find a joystick that uses microswitches and use the nc side of the down and right directions to allow you to have an easy simple potentiometer conversion

 

5200 game controls are a bit fiddly and when i made my joysticks i used 500k pots using the directions to either short for up and left or open for right and down

 

the pots also allow for a good center per game also you can play with the pot on say games like kaboom,superbreakout,gorf

but using pots to play missile command is harder than drawing a circle on an etch a sketch

[kool kitty89]

There's the wico controller that has a y-cable that piggybacks on the 5200 controller (to use the added buttons, start, pause keypad etc whichmany games require, especially A8-bit computer ports use the keypad)

 

I think the wico controller is identical to the 2600's except fot the second button, it's got the standard DE-9 connector, this then plugs into a seperate Z-gable with imputs for both the DE-9 and 15-pin (DA-9?) of the 5200 controller, which then plugs into the 5200.

[+Mitch]

I think the wico controller is identical to the 2600's except fot the second button, it's got the standard DE-9 connector, this then plugs into a seperate Z-gable with imputs for both the DE-9 and 15-pin (DA-9?) of the 5200 controller, which then plugs into the 5200.

 

No, it's completely different. The connector is the only thing they have in common.

 

Mitch

[atariksi]

I don't know if this can be done,But I got a brain storm the other day. I was thinking,could I remove the stock cable from a CX-40 joystick,and replace it with the stock cable,from the 5200 controller? I would just take the direction wires,along with the fire buttons, from the 5200 cable,and rig them to the CX-40 Bord. I know that I will not be able to use the pause or reset wires,without adding a switch of some kind. I, think that this would work for games like pac-man. This would also solve the no centering issue. The main Question is, will the 5200 let you do this this?Will the 5200 system know if, the pause and reset wires,are not connected? I, remember that some 2600 games would only play when you pressed the fire button. You did not need the reset switch on the console to start a game. So this is why I would take the fire wires from the 5200 cable and mod them to the fire wire termnal on the CX-40 bord.Once again,Would the 5200 system allow you to do this? Does the 5200 know? Can this be done? By doing this, I can use the standerd Atari 5200 plug. I, should be able to just plug the CX-40 into the 5200 system. I know that this will not work for all games, but It should work for the games,that need a centering joystick. If this does work, could someone mod me a pause and rested switch? Any help would be great. Thanks.

 

I think its called the Masterplay interface that lets you use Atari 800 style joysticks unmodified on Atari 5200.

 

If you have two parallel ports in your PC (or put in a dual parallel port card), you can use MPDOS Pro to use Atari 800 style joystick (unmodified) to play Atari 5200 games. One cable reads in signals of Atari joystick, and the other cable sends them to the Atari 5200 (via a digital joystick adapter) after converting them via software in real-time.

[SoundGammon]

I did one years ago. I "hard-wired" a CX-40 into a 5200 controller. I had to cut some traces on the CX-40, I believe they were the left and down positions. Then wired those to the pots on the 5200 controller. Worked great! I would start a game and "center" the 5200 controller so there would be no movement. Centipede and Missile Command were a no-go, but other games worked great. On River Raid I could pull the 5200 controller down and constantly fly slow! If I needed to speed up, I would just push up on the CX-40 controller and it would override the 5200 controller and go full speed! I don't remember what happened to that controller but I know I can make another one. I also did a Jaguar controller to the 5200, it works great except that I had to run an extra ground wire from the 5200 and use a jumper to the Jag controller. Problem was that the stock 5200 controller only has 14 leads instead of 15. I need to get a hold of cable with all 15 leads.

[Prodos8]

You need one of these: MasterPlay clone

 

...and a Wico Y-cable.