how did the 1 button gemini work?

[ulao]

So most all of you may know the paddle's use left and right as buttons. To go in to more detail, if you press an atari button on the paddle 1, it moves the stick left. That way the console can what? Distinguish it from the fire button?

 

so what I'm wondering is how did this work?

 

 

How could you use both stick and paddle games with the same button? It is either wired to a fire button or a left / right movement, not both?

 

 

 

 

To make it even more confusing there was this

 

 

Guessing that one had both a fire and paddle button.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tuxon86]

I don’t know any game that use both stick and paddle at the same time…

[+KaeruYojimbo]

I've never owned a set of the Super Arcade II controllers, but I'm guessing they're just ambidextrous and both buttons do the same thing. There aren't any games that use the joystick and paddle at the same time, at least not plugged into the same port (G.I. Joe uses a set of paddles in the left port and a joystick in the right). Games just read whatever input they get and act accordingly. A game that uses the joystick reads the "left" signal and moves a sprite to the left. A game that uses the paddles will read that same signal and launch a missile instead.

 

[alex_79]

2 hours ago, ulao said:

How could you use both stick and paddle games with the same button? It is either wired to a fire button or a left / right movement, not both?

It's only wired to the fire button. To play paddle games you're supposed   to use an Y-cable adapter that was included with the Gemini console and that allows to plug two controller into the same port and redirects the buttons to the left and right directions.

 

Coleco Gemini Manual

 

The Sears Video Arcade II / Atari 2800 controller is electrically the same as the Gemini one (both buttons are wired as the joystick fire), but the console has 4 ports and a Joystick/Paddle selector that replicates the functionality of the Coleco Y-adapter.

[vcsrocks]

On 1/8/2022 at 4:39 PM, alex_79 said:

It's only wired to the fire button. To play paddle games you're supposed   to use an Y-cable adapter that was included with the Gemini console and that allows to plug two controller into the same port and redirects the buttons to the left and right directions.

 

Coleco Gemini Manual

 

The Sears Video Arcade II / Atari 2800 controller is electrically the same as the Gemini one (both buttons are wired as the joystick fire), but the console has 4 ports and a Joystick/Paddle selector that replicates the functionality of the Coleco Y-adapter.

Yes, that's how I remembered it too.  Without the Y adapter the paddles would not work.

[MrMaddog]

On 1/8/2022 at 8:18 AM, Tuxon86 said:

I don’t know any game that use both stick and paddle at the same time…

Only 2600 game I know that can auto select between a paddle & joystick is Astroblast but with the Gemini and VCS II controllers it has to be set to one or the other, not both.