Asteroids contoller

[bikeguychicago]

Have any pictures of the Asteroids controller mock-up ever seen the light of day? Also, has anyone ever tried to build a homemade version of said controller?

[Lynxpro]

There's previous postings with pics of it.

[ledzep]

I'm surprised nobody has made a Starplex type button controller for the 5200, it would work great for Asteroids and Space Invaders. Make it compatible with the Wico Joystick/Keyboard/Y-cable controller combo. Depending on the button layout it could work with other games like Pac-Man, too, though that would be lower priority I think (a digital joystick is much better).

[SoundGammon]

Atari was designing a digital controller for the 5200 at one point.

 

I'd like to see a schematic or diagram for it!

 

It'd be easy to interface with that!

[+sramirez2008]

I'm surprised nobody has made a Starplex type button controller for the 5200, it would work great for Asteroids and Space Invaders. Make it compatible with the Wico Joystick/Keyboard/Y-cable controller combo. Depending on the button layout it could work with other games like Pac-Man, too, though that would be lower priority I think (a digital joystick is much better).

If you have a Master Play or Clone, you should be able to connect a Starplex Controller. I do it all the time. It's how I prefer to play Space Invaders.

[ledzep]

If you have a Master Play or Clone, you should be able to connect a Starplex Controller. I do it all the time. It's how I prefer to play Space Invaders.

 

I figured that that would work but I was thinking more a dedicated 5200 version, meaning it has 2 fire buttons on it along with buttons for directions (or left/right/thrust/shields or whatever you want to label them) and it would work the same way as the Wico stick in terms of wiring. Then hopefully people would make games that take advantage of that button layout, like maybe Rip-Off and Star Castle or create similar games that need 2 fire buttons. I know some of those games would just work better with joysticks but it would be a nice option. I'd buy one (or two).

[Lynxpro]

I'm surprised nobody has made a Starplex type button controller for the 5200, it would work great for Asteroids and Space Invaders. Make it compatible with the Wico Joystick/Keyboard/Y-cable controller combo. Depending on the button layout it could work with other games like Pac-Man, too, though that would be lower priority I think (a digital joystick is much better).

 

I'm more interested in getting an Atari 2600/A8/7800 Track & Field Controller working for the 5200 and then using a splitter cable with the CX53 so that the 3 Fire Buttons on the T&F Controller could be used with one hand and the Trak-Ball in the other so that 3-Base Missile Command could be ported to the 5200 without anyone having to mod a CX53 to get it to have 3 Fire Buttons.

 

We've discussed this over at the Facebook Trak-Bombers group a bit. Dan Kramer is receptive to it but the last hardware tinkering he's done - that I know of - was wiring a Tempest arcade spinner into a CX53 and getting it to work with 5200 Tempest for last year's [2016] Davis Atari Party.

[ledzep]

 

I'm more interested in getting an Atari 2600/A8/7800 Track & Field Controller working for the 5200 and then using a splitter cable with the CX53 so that the 3 Fire Buttons on the T&F Controller could be used with one hand and the Trak-Ball in the other so that 3-Base Missile Command could be ported to the 5200 without anyone having to mod a CX53 to get it to have 3 Fire Buttons.

 

We've discussed this over at the Facebook Trak-Bombers group a bit. Dan Kramer is receptive to it but the last hardware tinkering he's done - that I know of - was wiring a Tempest arcade spinner into a CX53 and getting it to work with 5200 Tempest for last year's [2016] Davis Atari Party.

 

I really wish he would document the steps so that someone else with a spinner could do the same thing. I have a spare CX-53 and I'd love to wire in the spare Tempest spinner I have and create an actual spinner controller. But I'd have more confidence doing it if there were pictures or diagrams to follow.