Thinking of making a dual control pad

[virtvic]

I'm thinking about making a new control pad for my 7800, about the same size as a Euro controller, but with 2 d pads and the 2 buttons in the middle.

 

It would obviously need 2 wires with 9 pin plugs on the end.

 

My questions are -

 

Is there anywhere you can get the molded plugs onto the wires (with all 9 wires wired up)

 

and

 

Is there anything I need to look out for when wiring them up? I had a look in my pad and it just looks like there are 7 wires used? U,D,L,R BUT1, BUT2, GND? - Actually thinking about it, is there some kind of weird wiring for these controllers?

 

[Osgeld]

1) sega genesis controller extension cables, cheap easy to find, has 9 wires

2) yes the fire buttons need a resistor

 

so you have pin 6 going to both buttons red wire goes to right yellow goes to left, then you need a 520-680 resistor on both the red and yellow lines to ground the only wire you wont need is pin 7 which is +5 volts

Edited March 19, 2017 by Osgeld

[virtvic]

Thanks for the info!

 

I just received 2x Gameboy pocket d pads, which I'm going to use on a double pad controller.

[Osgeld]

oh keep in mind the wire colors in the extension cord wont match the atari color's , you will have to probe them out

[+GoldenWheels]

"I'm thinking about making a new control pad for my 7800, about the same size as a Euro controller, but with 2 d pads and the 2 buttons in the middle."

 

Would the buttons work for left and right handed play? Or would the buttons only be wired to one plug?

 

If they're wired to both plugs as buttons L and R, would that create an issue when plugging both cords in to play Robotron? (which I assume is the point of this) .

[virtvic]

Hmm - good point (on the buttons)

 

If I'm clever (probably not) I could have 2 d pads and 2 sets of buttons, switchable - so you could use the left d pad and right hand buttons for a normal handed player and the right d pad and the left hand buttons for a reverse player. But I think this would be then difficult to use with a second cord for Robotron playing *see below, Grr!*

 

Another, more annoying point, is I was told today by my mate Bobbi Iddod, that Robotron doesn't work on a PAL system anyway!

 

Waah! - WHY? WHY? Atari, WHY?

 

Kind of negates the ppoint for me, but I am going to make the controller anyway, as I read that some people were working on hacking the US rom to play oon a PAL system.

[+GoldenWheels]

If you do figure a way to use two buttons but wire them so they would work with either stick plugged in individually, and NOT foul things up with BOTH cords plugged in for Robotron, PLEASE lmk how, and if anyone here knows how to wire this scenario, speak up!

 

Because I have a Robotron arcade stick controller I am making out of a 2600 shell, and I do NOT want to put four buttons on it to keep both sticks usable as lefty/righty. I did a ton of work on the case design (hell it's 90% done) etc and then realized...crap I don't think I can wire this with only two buttons but have all scenarios work!

Edited March 23, 2017 by GoldenWheels