Commander X16

10 hours ago, DigitalMonk said:

Thank you for the recommendations.  My problem is that I grew up in the era of joysticks, and I can't use a dpad for movement.  I can use it as a menu, but I have significant mental lag for movement.  I know that probably sounds insane for people even one or two years younger than I am...



I've even noticed this on shooters.  If I can configure movement onto a joystick and aim with my mouse, I'm much more dangerous than I am with keyboard/mouse.



I'm not ecstatic about the fighting stick layout either, because I'm noticeably right handed and I find that I generally need more dexterity on movement than for firing or actions.  (This reverses on first person shooters where aiming is such a fine detail process at high speed, but I don't expect frenetic first person action on the X16)



Worse comes to worst, I'll just buy a snes connector and a digital joystick from some other system and wire it up.

I agree. DPADs are not my thing, for the same reason - I'm a joystick person. I think the SNES->USB connection or something like that will probably be the way I go.

Well if you make your own joystick, it should be easy to rig up a 16-bit shift register and connect it to the correct pins on the snes plug. Just make sure the stick and buttons are hooked to the right pins on the latch side and you’re golden.

2 hours ago, ZeroByte said:

Well if you make your own joystick, it should be easy to rig up a 16-bit shift register and connect it to the correct pins on the snes plug. Just make sure the stick and buttons are hooked to the right pins on the latch side and you’re golden.

This is the cool solution...if only I knew how. So...I have a soldering iron and a will to use it. Beyond that - I have no idea how to make this work. @ZeroByte do you have tips on how to make such a thing?

Watch some Ben Eater videos about shift registers. He uses them in his episodes about PS/2 keyboards and about data transmissions/CRC.

So an 8-bit shift register has 8 “latch” pins that hold a byte. For an NES ctrlr you would hook the d-pad to the 4 low bits and the buttons to the high 4 bits.

Then there’s a carry in pin and a latch pin and a clock pin. Whenever the latch pin is active, the chip reads the 8 data pins and when it goes inactive, whatever the states of those pins is gets snapshotted.

Whenever the clock pin cycles, it does a ROL - shifting the bits up one place, and moving whatever state the shift-in pin has onto bit 0. The previous bit7 is moved onto the shift-out pin. That pin is the “data” pin on the controller cable.

So pulse the clock 7 more times and the data pin will show each of the remaining bits.

The (S)NES controller ties all the latch pins and the shift-in pin to high and the buttons will connect them to ground, which is why 0 = pressed and 1 = not pressed.

get a breadboard and a shift register and some LEDs. Hook it up on a breadboard and play around with it until your aha moment happens.

p.s. - for building a controller you will want a parallel in serial out style shift register.

On 4/29/2021 at 9:43 AM, ZeroByte said:

Well if you make your own joystick, it should be easy to rig up a 16-bit shift register and connect it to the correct pins on the snes plug. Just make sure the stick and buttons are hooked to the right pins on the latch side and you’re golden.

Getting this into an SNES/Atari joystick adapter is the number one thing I intend to look into getting made in Shenzhen, if I can do it before I leave China. For an Atari / Sega-2button, you could use an 8bit shift register, like the original NES.

I've lately noticed that the ink on the "high traffic" keycaps is starting to wear off.  A, L, and >.

 

I've lately noticed that the ink on the "high traffic" keycaps is starting to wear off.  A, L, and >.
 

If you’re referring to the WASD keyboard that definitely shouldn’t happen anywhere near this soon (if at all). What did their warranty support say when you reached out?

38 minutes ago, Perifractic said:

If you’re referring to the WASD keyboard that definitely shouldn’t happen anywhere near this soon (if at all). What did their warranty support say when you reached out?

Ha!  You think I reached out... that's amusing.

And it's a good idea too.  OK did due diligence; we'll see what they say.

1 hour ago, Perifractic said:

If you’re referring to the WASD keyboard that definitely shouldn’t happen anywhere near this soon (if at all). What did their warranty support say when you reached out?

I'm past the 1 year warranty.

They can offer discounted reprints for the affected keys, based on my previous order number.  $4 a key, three keys = $12.  $4.30 shipping. Worth a try.

I'm past the 1 year warranty.
They can offer discounted reprints for the affected keys, based on my previous order number.  $4 a key, three keys = $12.  $4.30 shipping. Worth a try.

Sounds like you have it handled. Good to hear.