Atari paddles + 2600-daptor issue

[chillin]

What's up guys? I think I might be having an issue using the paddles I have, but not exactly sure what's wrong. The set of paddles I have has three dead zones when using with the 2600-daptor I just got, I don't have an actual 2600 or flashback hardware to test the paddles with.

 

The deadzones on the far left and right is normal afaik, but there is another deadzone toward the middle. I was playing some Breakout on my computer and there is a sizable deadzone about 1/6 of the way in from the left wall when playing, which is making it impossible to comfortably play. (I don't think this normal?) It's not an emulation issue, I read the js input from both paddles in a linux terminal and they both have that third deadzone in the middle in the same spot. I think maybe the 2600-daptor is not calibrated properly but I also don't have a Windows machine to test it with either, it works fine in linux but I don't understand why that third dead zone is there.

 

Any suggestions before I email the guy who sells the 2600-daptors? Thanks a lot.

Edited January 6, 2016 by chillin

[dualcam]

This looks to be a SDL2/linux problem. Was able to get the paddles working smoothly in Stella 3.9.3, last release prior to SDL2. Requires putting SDL_JOYSTICK_DEVICE=/dev/input/js0 to /etc/environment, and using jstest-gtk to edit the calibration and set all center min/max values to 2047.

 

Going to Stella 4.0 and SDL2, and the paddle dead zone is back. Appears linux applies a calibration to anything that is an analog joystick, and the default calibration includes an axis center dead zone. Don't know of a way to change the calibration on the /dev/input/eventX that SDL2 uses - jstest-gtk seems to only work on /dev/input/js0. And SDL2 seems to be ignoring the SDL_JOYSTICK_DEVICE=/dev/input/js0.

 

So, looks like you need to use the SDL1 version until SDL2 is fixed.

 

Tom

http://2600-daptor.com

Edited January 9, 2016 by dualcam