Idea for new special feature on 7800 joystics and joypads

[Giles N]

I usually use either a retrogameboyz joypad or robotron-double-joypad when I play Atari 7800.

 

I see there are things that can be ordered here, and I can buy sticks and pads from other producers (akin to retrogameboyz).

 

Still, I miss some features (unless I’ve missed out on whats available).

 

Couid be interesting to hear whether I’m the only one who’d like to see such features on joypads and controllers made today for the 7800.

 

And if you have your own wishes or ideas, why not air them here, so producers may see if there’s anything worth pursuing?

 

And also discussions of whats possible to have a stick/controller feed into the 7800 ports could be useful.

 

- rapid fire or ultra-rapid fire (feeding 120 or 240 button-clicks into the port for a 60 TV frame update)

 

- for fighting and sports games; have a third ‘rapid shake (left-right)’ button, which when pressed feeds a signal overriding the direction-pad/stick-signal to let the console get the info that right/left shifts are done 120/240/480 times a second when pressed. 
This can be useful on games like MatMania, Pro Wrestlig, Kung-Fu Master, Winter Games, Summer Games, Xenophobe (when facehuggers attack, I believe).

 

- an extra button which can either be switched to extra up or down button (for use with games where you’d like to control jump/squat by pushing s button, not pressing/holding up/down) on pad/stick. Or it can be switched to auto-up-down wiggling, which together with auto left-right wiggling button would make for auto spinning effects, whereever that could be useful (commando, ikari warriors, robotron, tank command).

 

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Comments and ideas are welcome.

 

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My motivation for thinking about such a device, or possible function for future controllers, was that the 7800 library is comparably small, and to be able to have some fun with all the games, at least to some extent, could make it worth investing in a quality controller with many new special features.

 

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If the topic interests you; please share your thoughts!

[Reaperman]

Kind of along the lines of one of those ideas,

 

I once made a controller adapter (vid link) that had the option of disabling up/down on a stick, and assign them to extra controller buttons. This was initially done for 'press up to jump' platform games, but turned out to also be handy for asteroids-types, moon patrol, and racing games that use up/down as well.

 

My specific unit adapted neo geo controllers to NES, but it's really mostly for use with the 2600/7800 cores on the NT-Mini.

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Reaperman

[Giles N]

31 minutes ago, Reaperman said:

I once made a controller adapter (vid link) that had the option of disabling up/down on a stick, and assign them to extra controller buttons. This was initially done for 'press up to jump' platform games, but turned out to also be handy for asteroids-types, moon patrol, and racing games that use up/down as well.

 

My specific unit adapts neo geo controllers to NES, but it's really mostly for use with the 2600/7800 cores on the NT-Mini.

 

 

 

And do think it would be possible to design a joypad or arcade-stick with 2 extra buttons: one for rapd right-left wiggle, the other for the same just up/down, or to be used as separate up button or down button…?

 

I mean possible to have buttons which overrides or works simultaneously as the normal pad/stick…?

 

 

[Reaperman]

32 minutes ago, Giles N said:

And do think it would be possible to design a joypad or arcade-stick with 2 extra buttons: one for rapd right-left wiggle, the other for the same just up/down, or to be used as separate up button or down button…?

 

That would be much more complicated, probably needs a microcontroller, and I'm certainly not the one to ask about those. 🤣

 

Though I do wonder if maybe something like that new 'mega 7800' (running different firmware) could maybe assign functions like those to buttons. Or maybe it'd be easier to hack the games to use the extra 'extended operation' buttons that mega7800 already provides.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Reaperman