Yeah, thanks for those. I have kept your email address safe and was planning to mail you back (as well as about 30 other people) when I have some to sell. I have had the first test batch of PCBs through and they are really nice, I’m very impressed with the job Seeed Studio did manufacturing them. I’m aiming to get things ready to go by the end of the month.
Okay, well DC is definite. It’s one of my main goals as well, since the DC has some of the best shooters ever made and I’m more into them than fighters (arthritis in my hands, much as I love GG).
Sega Saturn support is done, works fine, as does Playsation. XBOX I need to sort out, but is possible and of course PSX->X converters work fine.
360 is a real sticking point. I am looking at options. One idea is to try and use the expansion port on 360 pads (where you attach the mini keyboard or headset) as it is not protected like the USB interface is, but unfortunately it seems to be unsuitable.
I think the best bet is to find a better way of hacking pads, and try to come up with a mass producible solution. That way we could produce pre-modded PCBs with solderless screw terminals for connections.
If we can find a cheap source of pads to buy in bulk, it could be done. I could either produce an add-on PCB, or maybe a replacement PCB so that the controller chip could be de-soldered from the pad and transplanted on to it. It sounds difficult but actually de-soldering some kinds of chips is quite easy and a fairly quick operation with a heat gun.
If anyone has any ideas, let me know. A third party (i.e. cheap) pad would be best, and it needs to have a chip that can be de-soldered or a PCB that can be connected to another PCB via pads.
The PCB would have the option of either soldering direct or using screw terminals for solderless connection.
Well, my design will be open source (with the possible exception of the DC code). I will offer assembled units, kits and just the programmed chip. Of course, being open source anyone will be able to get PCBs made and offer assembled units so I imagine some will be available in the US, although shipping from the UK is pretty cheap.
Adapter cables would be available pre-assembled too.
I wouldn’t mind collaborating with toodles, but the problem is he uses PICs and I use AVRs, so we are incompatible 
My guess is that he does not have access to a logic analyser or he would have done Dreamcast support by now, and since I don’t do PICs I can’t really help him. Our goals are a bit different too - he seems to have implemented every possible interface, but to my mind there isn’t much point doing really old 8 bit stuff (even if it is trivially easy) because there are no games that make it worth while, and besides those systems are perfectly emulated anyway.
So, is no one excited at the prospect of LED controllers or LCD screens? The LEDs could light up the buttons and joystick ball top with different colours for different systems and button layouts. The LCD could have personalised graphics and display button layouts etc.
(Complete noob here) Have you looked at the Madcatz 4716 pads? (you can get them in Argos)
But yeah, PS2, PS3/PC + 360 would be great, DC would be greater still.
Oh yeah, LCDs – those would be great for the unneeded hole on HRAPs :bgrin:
I agree about support for 8-bit being pointless. They’re basically all emulated perfectly now with the exception of some of the less popular console systems but those will come along eventually.
Not so for 32-bit. I don’t think there are perfect emulators out for the Sega Dreamcast or Saturn as of yet and most emulators above 16-bit are very buggy or require super-high spec computers to run even halfway well!
I much prefer support for 32-bit and above since computers can deal with 8- and 16-bit systems fine now.
P.S. – I’m more interested in an assembled chip kit with easy soldering. As long as I can use my salvaged adaptor cords from Saturn (and PS2), I’m okay on my end. However, if it becomes necessary to get separate cords for Dreamcast – that’s if the adaptors for Saturn=>Dreamcast don’t work for whatever reasons --, third party solutions would be preferable to wrecking perfectly good controllers. The only Dreamcast pad I’d destroy for the cable would be my MadCatz pad!
i would like a PSX/360 PCB only, everything else can be converted
Well, I have an XBOX 360, and use my Joystick (with Ultimarcs Mini-Pac inside of the joystick) with my Mac OS X on SDL Mame, but would love to see something that will take my USB Joystick and add a PCB that has Xbox 360/PC/Mac compatibility.
The price point should be under $70 USD. I could use the XMC Sniper adaptor with my Ultimarcs Mini-Pac joystick, buts pricey at $80-100 bucks.
Thoughts:
-DC support is nice.
-Terminals for wiring, or easy to solder points where the terminals would be (like the Cthulhu has).
-An easier connector to make the cables out of beside the DB-15. The RJ-45 (If at all possible) would be awesome. But the programming of the firmware needs to be smart enough to differentiate between cables.
-Cracking the 360 security and putting 360 support in is close to a must. If you’re unable to, add a piggyback for it. If you are able to, sex and sex will be offered to you. (Totally homo for 360 support).
wouldn’t there be an issue with lag if you use converters?
Not if you use a good one.
IIRC, the UPCB from Toodles fully assembled was $60. If it was anywhere between $50-60, it would be reasonable.
I would pay $80 if it had all those features mentioned and if it supported Dreamcast with a VMU with a breakout box or VMU port external to stick, Was almost as simple to setup as a Cthulhu, and supported RJ-45 cables somehow. TG-16, Snes, Genesis, and NES would be great too. They had a lot of arcade style games.
I am one of those people who are interested in compatibility with all consoles, even atari.
I think that breaking the Xbox 360 encryption would be against the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) because it is circumventing encryption software/firmware. Be sure to consult a lawyer if you think you might be doing something that would cause the legal team at M$ to kill your small business, or at least look at it before you get sued, incase you get wealthy enough to get sued.
Be sure to make it possible to yank 360 support in case you get a cease and desist from Microsoft. I think having to plug in a wired controller (a usb port on the breakout VMU box?) would be the best solution.
Color me interested. Especially if someone is offering them fully assembled.
Saturn to DC adapters will work fine. I have found a source to bulk buy Dreamcast extension leads from, and since I have another project which needs sockets I can use both ends!
I am trying to get some Saturn connectors made. I realised that I can make a PCB exactly the right size to fit one with some connector “pins” like the one used in SD card connectors. Actually, SD card connectors are pretty close to Saturn ones, but the pitch is wrong. If I can find a source of pins I could make them.
The problem is you need at least 9 pins, more if you want auto-detection. RJ45 only has 8, and are not easy to crimp on to salvaged gamepad leads.
I suppose you could use a HD DB15, like the ones used for VGA video. Well, in fact you could use any kind of connector you like (including RJ45) with a bit of soldering.
Er… thanks… erm, where was I…
I’d love to see inside one of those PS2/PSX to XBOX 360 converters. I can’t see MS sanctioning them so I think they must either have cracked the security or are desoldering chips from XBOX pads to use on their own PCBs (hence the high cost). I still think that might be the most viable option.
It wouldn’t be the first time someone did something like that either. Datel couldn’t get their Action Replay for the PS2 sanctioned, so they bought up game discs in bulk and cut the middle sections containing the protection out of the middle of the CD. They then cut the middles out of their AR CDs and glued (!) the ones with the protection into them!
The only other thing I can think of is a piggyback PCB with flexible connectors that line up exactly with the button pads on the gamepad PCB.
Not if the converters don’t introduce any lag. You are correct to worry about it though. I prefer direct connection for that reason. Also, converters are hard to get these days.
Luckily I don’t live in the US so am not subject to it’s laws 
Also, since I only do it as a hobby and not as a business even copyright issues fall under “fair use”.
As for Dreamcast VMU support, it won’t be available I’m afraid. Well, never say never, but it’s unlikely, especially as you can just have a VMU plugged in to another pad (which is what I do at the moment with a PSX to DC converter).
It seems like there is interest in this project, so I’ll try and get it written up ASAP.
I would be very interested in this, but is there any chance it can come with some sort of blender attachment? Or perhaps the cheese grater thingy that comes with the slap chop.
I’ve always wondered how those Sniper converters work for the 360, would it be anyway possible to build a pcb that read the encryption from a 360 pad connected and the rest of the controls on the pcb board?
Maybe someone needs to reverse engineer the sniper adapter for figure out a solderfree solution?
P.S. Cool your in the UK.
I’m still not seeing how you’re doing anything differently from Toodles UPCB here.
I mean it’s basically the exact same thing with DC support right?
And with the UPCB you can easily piggyback a agetec pcb, which is a really small easy pcb to work with.
With MvC2 coming out for the next gen consoles your demand for the DC is going to go down a ton.
Seems to me like your time would be better spent talking to Toodles about what you know about DC, and possibly implementing that into the UPCB.
I think the Sniper converters probably have an official XBOX 360 controller chip inside, de-soldered from an official or third party controller and soldered onto Sniper PCB.
Someone who has one needs to open it and take a picture
The XBOX controllers don’t seem to be encrypted as such, but there is some kind of secret code sent by the pad to the 360 to prove that it is genuine. I imagine it must be some kind of challenge-response system because a simple code could easily be copied. It’s unlikely that it could be broken.
One other idea I had was to use a 360 controller PCB to do the authentication, then, swap the USB port control over to my controller which will then send back the actual status reports. It would only work if the 360 only does one authentication of the pad when it is plugged in, and MS could easily kill it with a software update.
Oh, and I checked the MadCatz arcade stick, the chips are not de-solderable but it might still be usable as a piggyback board.
That’s right. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not trying to compete with Toodles, I do this as a hobby. I’m just wondering if it’s worth my time and effort to document everything and design PCBs. If not, I’ll just make my own on matrix board and throw source code for the USB bits up on my web site.
It’s mainly for shooters on my end. You are right though, between PS2 and PS3 it covers 70-80% of what most people play I think, or will do when MvC2 is out.
I think it’s impossible for the UPCB to support the DC. The PIC microcontroller it uses is far too slow. It’s like an old 1970s CPU, the sort of thing found in 8 bit consoles. It needs 4 clock cycles per instruction so at 20MHz Toodles has only 2.5 instructions per bit on the 2MHz Dreamcast bus.
I use AVR microcontrollers, which are much more modern and only need one cycle per instruction most of the time so at 15MHz I have 7.5 instructions per bit. What’s more, the AVR has 32 registers to the PIC’s 1, so it’s actually pretty easy and you can even do some of the decoding in between bits.
Maybe Toodles could chime in here if I’m wrong.
About the only way of helping him out would be to do a bus controller which would do all the communication with the DC and use the UPCB as a slave in Neo Geo mode. I suppose if there was demand for it I could do it, but since it’s not something I need and I’m not in this for the money, I would have to be convinced.
Sounds like this would be adding to the cost, unneccessarily. I’d say make it as cheap as possible
360 and Dreamcast support would be fantastic. I will be watching this thread for updates.
So what about maybe creating a small chip/pcb that could piggyback onto the UPCD for DC support?
The UPCB supports the DC via piggybacking a controller.
If you have the knowledge to work with DC and could create something that just pops onto the UPCB, that would be useful.
Obviously it never hurts to have someone new creating things for the scene, but like I said a multi console PCB is already out there. I think it’s important to do some brainstorming and come up with something truly unique so that you’re filling a void rather than just making a small addition to something that’s already available.