3 Button Joysticks

[TomD]

Making progress on my programmable joystick interface and recently added support for 3 button joysticks using the Kempston interface layout of pin 5 is button 3. However I cannot find any 3 button joysticks to test it with, so am wondering if these even exist? The Sega MegaDrive pad uses a select pin mechanism to allow more than 3 buttons (up to 6) but that isn't really what I'm trying to do. Does anybody know of any joysticks that could be used to test, guess 2 buttons would've been a luxury back in day!

TomD

[jamesh]

However I cannot find any 3 button joysticks to test it with [...]? The Sega MegaDrive pad [...] more than 3 buttons [...]

Sorry, do you need 3 or "more than 3" buttons? IIRC, Mega Drive 6 button controller (contemporary knock off, technically) has all three buttons readable from port 31 when connected to DivMMC via home made adapter. No SELECT magic involved, my adapter is 100% passive, SELECT signal(s) only required to read 6(7, including MODE) buttons, if I am not mistaken.

[TomD]

I just need 3, just trying to get the kempston 3 button config working which needs B3 on pin 5.

On the 3 button MD pad I have (original) button A or Start do not work without toggling the select pin. Only B (mapped to B1) & C (mapped to B2) do which unfortunately only gives 2 buttons.

You mention a homemade adapter, what does this do? I've looked at the pinouts of the 6 button controller and the buttons are all doubled up so Up is Up & Button Z, Button B is A & B etc... I can't see how to get this to work without the select signal? On yours which buttons map to B1, B2 & B3?

TomD

[Old-User]

... However I cannot find any 3 button joysticks to test it with, so am wondering if these even exist? ...

TomD

To my knowledge, there are joysticks for the spectrum with 3 buttons but not really wired for having 3 working fire buttons, only 2 actually. You would have to alter them although it can be done.

For example, the Voltmace Delta 3S or the Quickshot V.

I don't know about the Voltmace but my Quickshot V is fully wired (cable and plug) so if you find one it should be easy to experiment with.

[jamesh]

I've looked at the pinouts of the 6 button controller and the buttons are all doubled up so Up is Up & Button Z, Button B is A & B etc...

Apologies, of course I was wrong, it only has two pins available. I was playing with my sizif board (which has native MD controller support) all evening, and I have it in the Plus case, and DivMMC was plugged in. So late at night I had a phantom memory of using original 48k. I guess I should not post comments on message boards when I am half asleep

Nonetheless, I did some Sega MD related “research” back in August and here are a few things from my notebook. Hope it helps. Not that anybody won’t be able to google it, but... There is an existing design which claims to support three buttons, A to pin 5, C to pin 9. I have not tried it personally, though. However, I was following that piece describing the use of Pico, part2 and it did work for me (I did not actually connect it to a Kempston port at the time).

[Joefish]

Does anybody know of any joysticks that could be used to test, guess 2 buttons would've been a luxury back in day!
TomD

Not really. You could always make one! Microswitched arcade joystick modules are common as muck these days, and you can still get 9-pin joystick extension leads, which are fully populated, to cut one end off and use as a cable. Although plastic project boxes seem to have doubled in price recently.

[TomD]

Not really. You could always make one! Microswitched arcade joystick modules are common as muck these days, and you can still get 9-pin joystick extension leads, which are fully populated, to cut one end off and use as a cable. Although plastic project boxes seem to have doubled in price recently.

Yeah I think I will have to. I'll mock a simple PCB up to test but not sure it will ever be used

Tom

[Seven.FFF]

There's plenty of 3 button DE9 joysticks out there. You just have to pick the wiring you want!

[TomD]

There's plenty of 3 button DE9 joysticks out there. You just have to pick the wiring you want!

I know the wiring exists, I'm just asking if any actual joysticks exist as I can't find any. Yes I could use the Megadrive controller and mess about with the select signal, but I'm really asking if anybody has seen a 3 button joystick (not interface) that maps to the Amiga or Kempston mapping (same wiring) as I can't find any. Best I can find is 2 button.

Tom

[1024MAK]

I don’t have any joysticks that have three independent trigger/fire buttons.

Here is a my design for an interface. It supports three fire buttons:


Mark

[TomD]

Thanks for all the replies, I've got the interface itself working fine it is just finding joysticks to work with it. I added 3 button support and then couldn't find a joystick that had 3 buttons that mapped correctly so did wonder why Kempston added support for this if there never was any joysticks.

TomD

[AndyC]

I think the problem was summed up by the image @Seven.FFF posted. Once you go beyond the basic Atari single button, various different machines had subtly different wiring.

So if you made two or three button joysticks, you were instantly limiting which machine owners you could market them to. Or would have to release different versions per machine. And then deal with all the headaches from returns from people who bought the wrong one. It just wasn't worth it from their point of view (I suspect many of them loathed Amstrad for what they did with the 128K joystick ports for much the same reason)

[1024MAK]

Keep in mind that the Atari “standard” originates from the Atari Video Computer System (later named the 2600).

This had the port functions as:

Pin 1 Up
Pin 2 Down
Pin 3 Left
Pin 4 Right
Pin 5 Paddle B
Pin 6 Trigger
Pin 7 +5V power
Pin 8 0V/ground/common
Pin 9 Paddle A

Spoiler

This would be a nice table if/when the admins implement table functionality:
[table]
[tr]
[th]Pin[/th]
[th]Function[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]Up[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]Down[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3[/td]
[td]Left[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4[/td]
[td]Right [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5[/td]
[td]Paddle B[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6[/td]
[td]Trigger / Fire[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]7[/td]
[td]+5V power[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]8[/td]
[td]0V / ground / cimmon[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]9[/td]
[td]Paddle A[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Note that the paddle inputs were a type of “analogue” input. They are not button inputs.

All later variations are due to Atari or other manufacturers adapting their ports for their own reasons.

And back in the 1980s, joystick ports/interfaces that supported two fire buttons were the exception. Hence the lack of joysticks that had two independent fire buttons. I can’t think of a Kempston joystick interface that supported two fire button inputs, let alone three.

Some Of the “modern” Kempston compatible joystick interfaces support three fire button inputs, because they are hobbyist devices. The cost of including the extra inputs is virtually nothing. So why not?

Mark