Rob Mitchell Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 I just finished modifying my Namco 5-in-1 unit to allow for an Atari compatible joystick to be used as input to the thing .. allowing for 8 way movement as required by the Bosconian game. With a gender changer this thing can be used as an Atari controller too! I mounted a DB9 Male port on the back blue panel immediately above the video out cable. Disassembly: Gently peel away the four corners of both side decals. Four screws will be revealed. You do not need to peel away the whole decal .. just the four corners to access the four screws on each side. Remove the two yellow side panels. Two white clamp pins (one on each side) are then exposed. These hold the top and bottom blue assemblies together. Remove these and you can tilt the whole top forward. Unsolder the two battery wires from their terminals. You can then tilt the whole top forward and upside down. The front decal will keep the two halves in place. I noticed a fine white powder all over the battery compartment. This is from friction in the joystick assembly. I added some lubricant to the area where the shaft hits the 4-way, diamond shaped, travel limit. The stick seems to work smoother after the lubricant was added. (Those of you who want 8-way motion without further modification could file the travel limit to make it round instead of stock, 4-way, diamond shape.) The circuit board which has the logic is quite small. Upon close examination I found all the necessary solder points for the joystick and fire button. They are labeled for easy identification! It was a simple task to solder jumper wires to each of these points and then to the DB9 Male port. Red is Up (pin1), Green is down (pin2), Yellow is Left (pin3), and White is Right (pin4). Fire is pin6. And common ground is pin8. Also I added a wire for pin 7 to power at the battery connection. This will allow for a joystick with an autofire circuit to function. This has the additional benefit of powering the Namco unit without batteries when connected to the Atari secondary controller port! Kinda cool! BTW: The hardware of this thing is pretty impressive! Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindog Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 Can you confirm once and for all that it's *not* "NES on a chip"? Or that it is, if it is Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveW Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 That's what I was wondering! Well, what is it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phosphor Dot Fossils Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 It's made of people!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaManFan Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 Soylent Jakks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Mitchell Posted February 27, 2004 Author Share Posted February 27, 2004 I have no idea about NES on a chip .. Bosconian sure is alot more fun with an 8 way stick .. like the Wico bat plugged into the Namco unit. And I'm getting higher scores in Galaxian with the Starplex 5 button controller. Plus I added a power in jack .. so I can use a 5-6v DC adapter with it! Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted February 27, 2004 Share Posted February 27, 2004 I played this today at the local Toys R Us (guess they're carrying them now). And from what I can see, just by look and feel, it's NOT an NES.. I'm guessing that probably like the 2600 version, it's actual partially emulated game code with some changes to fit the hardware for sound, etc. The biggest hint of this to me was in Pac-Man. You could do the old Arcade trick where .. while you're travelling in a corrider, if you TAP in a perpendicular direction to what you're going in, when you get to the end of the section, Pacman will stop and face in the direction you tapped in. Now I don't know of ANY home version ANYWHERE that allowed that type of behaviour. It was only in the arcade and in emulated versions. Well guess what, the Namco Arcade stick allows you to do it. Thus I think it's emulated or at least partially emulated code. That being said, the patterns are totally off, but it looks like it may have it's own. Also the sounds seem to be watered down a bit, I'm guessing to fit the hardware. Just my thoughts p.s. I was dissapointed that Galaxian sounded like total crap. The whirring of the aliens was absent. And your shots sound is some piece of crap static burst. DigDug's music is there however, but it's like some cheaper electronic keyboard version of it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mechanized Posted February 27, 2004 Share Posted February 27, 2004 Galaxian kinda sucks, anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dones Posted February 27, 2004 Share Posted February 27, 2004 Hey Rob, do you have some pictures of your mod? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Mitchell Posted March 1, 2004 Author Share Posted March 1, 2004 Hey Rob, do you have some pictures of your mod? Sorry no .. just what is described! Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Outlaw X Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 "NES on a chip" made me think of something I read last week, it involves another one of these "games crammed in a controller" systems and a cool project to boot. Check it out..... http://www.classicgaming.com/vcsp/NESp%20Page%201.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Mitchell Posted May 9, 2004 Author Share Posted May 9, 2004 My nephew and I were playing the modified Namco unit .. with an Atari stick pugged into the port I installed on the back. We noticed that Rally-X allows for brief diagonal movement also and thus better control! Plus when he got to Round 4 of Bosconian .. we noticed that the space stations are arranged according the the constellation Orion! Cool! Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Mitchell Posted May 15, 2004 Author Share Posted May 15, 2004 Actually I gave my 16 yo nephew one of the Namco units .. and he decided to modify his as I had done mine (Atari controller port on back). And he did it! All the wires were soldered properly in place and it worked great! He had a smile on his face when he tested his unit with a Wico bat!! Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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