The fact that a Brook Engineer is looking at it is reward enough. I’m glad I brought up a sitch that doesn’t currently work.
Also there are 2 forums complaining about Brook Retro. While you’re here, i got a couple questions.
Is the Brook Retro Board tested as a single board being plugged into discrete inputs and output with one RJ45 being the designated output, with the hookup for the intended controller? Based on some of these typings in, they are trying to hook up. USB and a retro simultaneously, or are outputting 2 RJ 45s sumultaneously. So would a solution be to sinplify elrctrinically?
I know the granddaddy of RJ45 biards, the Cthulhu, is frozen in time, but the Brook can be worked on and improved. Even the Cthulhu has 4 different NES modes including a “punch out” mode, has 3 Turbo Grafx modes, and 2 Xbox Prime modes.
Right now the Cthulhu is the best. But it can’t be improved. I know the Xbox Prime setting is not the “Duke fighting” standard, and the standard layout Brook used is incomprehensible to Americans, because it’s based on the controller S layout, which is worse for fighters. Having a software based Duke setting makes it equal to Cthulhu.
A few things would put it over the top. One is a Wii Classic/NES Mini/SNES Mini connector. Anothet is a software based setting for what Ascii, Capcom. And Nintendo of Japan think should be the default fight standard:
L X R
Y B A
as opposed to Cthulhu’s only choice,
Y X L
B A R
which is for convenient for Street Fighter without going through options, but even Capcom used the YBA stanadard because Super Ghouls And Ghosts and Mega Man X, as the easiest 2 examples of what Capcom owns, would be ruined by a BAR setup, let alone quite a few other games. Capcom even made a one-option selection to reprogram the buttons in SF2 mode, but it defaults to ‘pad mode’.
Finally, even though it would be painful to makeva Brook Genesis PCB, if you combine it with other systems that use 9 pin (or more) inputs, then maybe you can make a Brook Paleo Board if all the rest of the systems. You have matrix coded keypads, like the Intellivision. Colecovision, Atari 5200, not to mention Astrocade, Atari 7800, 3DO, 2600 Booster Grip, Odyssey 2, Vectrex, Arcadia 2001, Faitchild Channel F, Atari Jaguar, Neo Geo, Sega Master System, and CD-i (luckily the 2600 standard joystick can work with 7800, Genesis, and Colecovision joysticks) with quite a few people complaining abour pre1985 ergonomics. And the 2600, Astrocade, Neo Geo, Master System, and Neo Geo work with uncoded discretes. Easy GIGO. The 2 systems where a fight stick might be VERY desired is Intellivision and 5200, despite the fact they have nothing recognizable as a fight game.
But most of these retro titles can be helped with a 4/8 way stick.
Finally there needs to be an external SOCD scrubber/ 4 Way Enforcer, options can be N+S= N, S, first. Last, neutral, free. similar options for x axis. Then the perpendicular scurbbers can have THESE options: x, y, first, last, neutral, free, or 70%. By the way. You need 70% option on thev5200, becaude it’s natively analog, and the logic is controlled by a physical circular restrictor and a controller thay doesn’t assume that could have some errors. Otherwisewhen x= 100% and y = 100%, then the radius of the controller can be 141% when at 45 degrees.
Lazy 5200 coders assume (correctly with default 5200 stick, but 2 thrid party dolutions threw that assumption out the window) that if abs(x) > 80% then abs(y) will ALWAYS be <60%. That’s the main source of runtime errors that are controller-based.
By the way vfree mode turns off that scrubber,. Freeingbonevopposite axis allows Track N Field and the Activision Decathlon to improve your score.where E and W are supposed to be independent rum buttons mappef to E and W.
Likewise freeing perpendicular scrubbers allows digital 8 way mode like normal.
Just want your thoughts @ShinMagus.