Question about the general concept of Controller Converters vs pad hacking: I’ve gone to thrift stores and picked up used controllers for lots of different systems over the years. I have found controllers from everything from the 2600 to the 360. I was planning on saving one of each for an ambidextrous fight stick in street fighter style. For the purposes of a) using factory authorized parts and not violating warrantees, (even though most of these systems are well beyond warrantees anyway) and b) input lag noticeable on a CRT TV, is wiring a “naked” controller where one wire equals one input, and making some sort of bulk connector where one pin equals one input, and then optionally having an intermediate device for button swapping for a few quirky games, and then finally the bulk connector is lead to and soldered on to the actuators of the actual d-pad and buttons, better than buying adapters? In more cases is it cheaper to find these controllers working at a Goodwill, then to hire someone to pad hack and sacrifice the pad than it is to sell the factory authorized pad and buy an adapter from brand x where there may or may not be incompatibilities and lag?
Just out of curiosity, is anyone willing to take this job? $200 starting deposit, I provide the actual joystick and joypads to be pad hacked shipped to you? Not necessarily a rush job, (I’ve waited 25 years since I last beat my famous gaming friend that consistently, zophar321, with my junk right handed stick in SSF2NC , what’s a few months more) Just 5 other things need to be done.
- a joystick extender was not installed and the controllers feel clunky at the corners. I got the piece. Can you add it in to make it function right?
- both a left hand stick port and a right hand stick port so for 90% of the games the left buttons horizontally mirror the right butons, the josytick is flipped and set for “Street Fighter arrangement”
- for those 10% of games that a) don’t have button reassigning, and b) need button reassigning when swapped to the right hand stick or for other reasons, a little box that can have some easily replaceable standard, like RCA cables, where where you lead one RCA cable from and to dictates its function in said game. Also important is that buttons equal sticks and vice versa to play Pac-Land on PS1 and Namco Pac-Man Museum 360, and games like Track N Field and The Activision Decathlon? (also if it’s weak, maybe a AA or AAA battery compartment to boost the signal if it saves repeated soldering would make me pound and penny wise.) Not a quick connect standard, that breaks too much from repeated swapping of buttons. RCA should be good and plentiful. Stays on when you want, comes off when you want.
- a little attachment on the outside of the buttons where I can stick a second joystick for twin-stick shooters or a controller with a numeric keypad, (5200, Colecovision, Intellivision, Jaguar) where I insert the original controller and operate the keypad and use overlays if necessaary, and on the Super Action controller, use the roller wheel.
- Since I have 4 Astrocade controllers,the maximum needed, and no desire to actually purchase a fifth, I heard a simple “pin swap” adpater with DB9 on both ends, one male, one female, can be used to accept an Atari 2600 joystick, and possibly certain higher derivatives, like the 7800, SMS, and Genesis. I don’t need the analog paddle in games I wat to use with an arcade stick.
I have these controllers I’m looking for someone to work with:
-PS2 DS2
-Xbox Duke
-GameCube
-Dreamcast (make sure to preserve the VMU slots)
-3DO (make sure to preserve the daisy chaining ability)
-Jaguar (I heard you could make a Jaguar Pro stick by mapping your joystick buttons to keys 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 without disassembling an actual pro controller)
-An already pad-hack ready Xbox 360 wired controller. (meaning it was disassembled for an Xbox 360 version of the joystick, but the original maker somehow didn’t get my instructions. I wanted button programming and system selection to be independent. What I got was, if I were to have added a new PCB, I would have had to detach the PCM one input at a time and reattach one input at a time, and with quick connects would have been unmanageable, and also the spaghetti wires made it not very user-friendly in telling what wire was what. and the labels fell off, making my Xbox 360 era joystick worthless without risking a misconnect and possible damage.)
-Wii Classic controller
-A couple of broken Xbox One controllers, (one where the analog range is short in one direction, and I found out by trying to play Inside and I couldn’t swim fast enough until I changed controllers, the other one has a trigger that feels locked and not seated right, but the actuator might work. Both sound like good candidates for them to be redeemed into a Fight Stick Hack Joypad Whichever one cannot be saved as a real Xbox One controllers will be the candidate.)
- Saturn Digital
- N64
- SNES
- Genesis 6-button
- (if I find out any games I have won’t work for the 6,) Genesis 3-button
- Turbo Grafx 16
- NES
- (If the 6 button Genesis pad cannot be used for this,) Master System (and no, a real Master System with Snail Maze, not the Power Base Converter for Genesis.)
- 7800
- 5200 (I know the 5200 is a native analog control, I just need it to actuate directions digitally so I can play any non-analog-specific games)
- Colecovision Super Action (4 games I have won’t work for the standard CV)
- Colecovision Standard (2 joystick games I have won’t work for the Super Actions)
- Intellivision (asking for personal opinion, most games work well with the 8 or 4 way stick. Is there any game which will either lose something or a lot by not making a separate 16-way fight stick, yet is better with a special 16 way srtick instead of the disc? I predict the answer is, “Any game where you need the 16 way is probably not good with a stick.” But I may be wrong)
- (If the atari-> bally converter works with NONE OF THESE: a 7800, Master System, or Genesis 6 or 3 button) a real 2600 stick, just so the Astrocade works. I know I can use any of those with 2600 safely, not so sure about the Bally.)
I don’t have one yet, but it’s as easy as going to Gamestop, a Hori Nintendo-authorized Switch wired USB game pad to be hacked for Street Fighter.
By the way, I can steadily add $25-50 a month so if the price is more, just hold on to some of the parts until I pay. I’ve waited 25 years since I beat Zophar321, I can wait a few more months
By the way, this is a backup plan if Matthew Gummo is too busy. I heard he’s the best guy for a wiring job like this is and is less about the artistry of personal fight sticks.
This is the stick you’re working on to make ambidextrous. I designed it to be straightforward:
