2600 control panel mod idea for emulation

[Legend]

This is just an idea I had for a mod.

 

Use a Flashback 2 with stelladapters inside. The idea is to make the the switch/buttons on the face of the console mappable with an emulator like stella and the adapters inside so you can just use the console and the joysticks to operate the emulator. The difficulty, reset, and game select switches could be programmed accordingly and the power button used to exit out of the emulator to switch games. The joysticks would be used for navigating the menu and selecting the games.

 

I figure the buttons on the console simply need to be modified in a similar way the stelladapter does it where it makes the computer recognize it as a joystick and recognizes the buttons as programmable.

 

It would be connected via usb. Maybe a way to splice the modified console with the stelladapters so it only needs one usb port.

 

I know this is a fairly useless and unnecessary mod, but I think it's a kinda cool idea to add a little more flavor and authentic experience to using an emulator. I don't even know if it's possible to do really. I personally don't have the know-how or tools to do something like this, but I just thought it was a cool idea and I thought I'd share it. Maybe someone out there can actually make something like this.

[Video]

That would be cool. Certainly easier than hunting for the settings on the keybaord. Maybe you could remap the buttons, and wire a cheap keybaord up inside of a system? That would kind of work....or maybe it just makes sense to me

[user42]

Been there, done that....

 

 

 

I made the box and sent it off to a guy to do the USB controller. In the end I was not really happy with his work (and the price tripled while he was working on it) but it almost does what it was supposed to. The switches work but the toggle swiches are always "on" (constant button press), which is fine in the emulator but if I switch to a different program while it is plugged in I get interesting effects... He also said he could get joysticks, paddles, driving controllers, keypads, and a slew of other controllers all working. Most of them work but not super well. If you are interested here's what works..

 

A2600 Joysticks - good

 

A2600 Paddles and Driving - Windows sees some kind of input but the emulator does not...I still use Stelladaptors

 

A2600 Keypad - only works in player one slot

 

SMS pad - Works

 

Genesis pad - Untested (should work)

 

Colecovision pad - joystick works, keypad does not

 

Intellivision pad - Untested (I bet it's the same as Coleco)

 

 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2011 by user42

[Legend]

That does look cool and functional. The only thing missing is actually looking like a smaller 2600 console.

[Van]

I've made custom keypad projects based around gutting the controller from a USB keyboard. Start by working out the the scan matrix and add your own buttons to the correct row and colum pads on the controller. With a little effort, you can map a custom keypad to selected keyboard keys, your PC will pick it up as a second keyboard. no drivers needed and Stella won't see any diffence between it and your regular keyboard. you could map the Stella control panel keys to the FB buttons and map the Stella keyboard 'Joystick' keys to DB9 pins and use Atari joysticks. You may need dedicate connectors for Atari keypads due to Stella's mapping on the keyboard, but that maybe editable within Stella, don't know off hand.

I have a composite USB hub-Hotkey pad-trackball mouse. Took about a week between mapping the keyboard controller, wiring a switch matrix and building a slope front case. using the keyboard controller avoids programming/drivers/custom micro controller. The hub was needed to avoid having two USB cables running to the PC.

Just a thought,

Van

[Van]

FOLLOW UP----

Just checked Stella's docs, you can remap events and use a gamepad sooo I would think about hacking a gamepad such as an old xbox360 pad, plenty of pots and buttons. Remap the d-pad to an Atari joystick connector, triggers could be mapped as paddle events.

Food for thought,

Van