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Pause Mod through Controller?


Yart

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So I was looking at the Pause Kit for the 2600 on the AtariAge store (This one), and I thought, "Finally! A solution to my bladder problem!", but then I realized you have to drill a hole in the system.

 

My 2600 is nice and minty, and I'd never be able to bring myself to physically mod the outter shell. So it got me thinking...

 

The Sega Genesis controller can plug into the Atari 2600's joystick port. Looking at the pinouts for the Genny controller and the 2600's port, I found that pin 9, used for Start on the Genny, is unused!!

 

2600: http://pinouts.ru/Inputs/JoystickAtari2600_pinout.shtml

Genny: http://pinouts.ru/Game/genesiscontroller_pinout.shtml

 

While, yea, a switch has to be "on" for the Pause Kit to work, meaning you'd have to hold down the Start button (if it was possible to wire it up to that pin), but wouldn't it be neat if there was a version of the mod that had a toggle through a button press to enable the use of a controller button or something to save altering the actual outside casing of the system for those purists out there?

 

Just saying.

 

What does everyone think? I think it'd be a cool idea.

Edited by Yart
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I didn't look at all my Ataris but two of my heavy sixers have 8 vent holes at the bottom. I don't see why the pause mod needs a new hole. It seems like one could have the wires to the switch going out a hole that is already on the system to the switch.

 

If I were to pause mod one of my heavy sixers then I would get two of the thickest wires I could find that would fit through the vent holes, wrap them around through a vent hole next to it and out the original vent hole(to keep the wires from being pulled out), have them wired to a very tiny box that holds the switch, and then Velcro the tiny box to whatever controller I happen to be using. I would put Velcro on all my controllers so I could put the button on all of them. Or I would Velcro the box to the system. I would have the ability to pause from either my Atari, my controller, and the ability to restore my Atari back.

Edited by Schizophretard
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Check out this topic about making the console switches work remotely including the pause kit.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/167429-atari-2600-hardware-mod-for-remote-console-switches/

 

I have had my pause kit for over six months but haven't installed it in one of my consoles yet. I was thinking about doing a similar thing to what Schizophretard wants to do with the pause button.

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Well it could be possible as long as connection 9 on the joystick is in the wire and on the board of the joystick and use pin 8 for ground you could add a switch on the joystick and connect the pause mod to pin 9 and 8 on the console that might work. Just as long as there is a physical wire for pin 9 in the controller and through the wire, I dunno if there is or not. There would be more research needed. I didn't get my puase kit in the mail yet so I'm not sure what those 2 orange wires are (+ and -) ?

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It would be a simple matter to wire up circuit that could include a pause button on the standard atari joystick.

 

All you need to do is have the button connect the left and right movement switches (or some other impossible-during-normal-use combination), and wire up a nand or xor or some other logic gate to activate the 'real' pause modification when it senses the impossible combination.

 

This way, you are using existing wires, existing connectors, no outward mods need be done to the system. In fact, it would add 7 connections to the pause mod.

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Someone should definately try this! Also tell CPUWIZ so he can update his instructions for the pause mod. I agree with Keatah's idea to use the current wires only if connection 9 isn't physically present in the joystick and the joystick wire and to 'alter' the current wire setup on the joystick.

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off topic but a little tip for those installing the pause switch...

 

the instructions show to solder to the chip pins directly...dont do this... instead solder to the points on the underside of the board...theres even a nice silkscreen (at least on h6's) that shows pin 1...Sooooo much easier!

 

I mounted my switch on the front grill. I drilled my hole into the lower part of the grill, sanded back the upper level to acomidate the nut, wedged the nut into place and screwed the switch into the nut... little crude looking but Im sure someone more handy with a dremmel could make it cleaner looking

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have just tested Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) 3-button standard gamepad and it completely sweeps the floor with Atari's 7800 european gamepads... I have achieved much higher scores in any game I tried with Genesis controller.. Sega rocks! Atari sucks!

Edited by maiki
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It took me like 1 hour to figure out how to solder those wires to the chips...I tried using a solder-less technique by taking the chips out of the socket and place the wires inside the holes and carefully have the legs hold the wires in place....didn't work :(

 

I was gonna solder on the underside but wasn't 100% sure if the solder points were the correct ones...then I FINALLY carefully soldered them to the legs of the chip by having the wire taped down laying on the leg so it wouldn't move while I soldered it...more of a hassle but I got it to work...also I would advice NOT using the orange wires for the switch...cos mine ended up breaking off somehow so I had to re-solder a 24" 22 AWG wire to allow more shielding.

 

 

off topic but a little tip for those installing the pause switch...

 

the instructions show to solder to the chip pins directly...dont do this... instead solder to the points on the underside of the board...theres even a nice silkscreen (at least on h6's) that shows pin 1...Sooooo much easier!

 

I mounted my switch on the front grill. I drilled my hole into the lower part of the grill, sanded back the upper level to acomidate the nut, wedged the nut into place and screwed the switch into the nut... little crude looking but Im sure someone more handy with a dremmel could make it cleaner looking

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It would be a simple matter to wire up circuit that could include a pause button on the standard atari joystick.

 

All you need to do is have the button connect the left and right movement switches (or some other impossible-during-normal-use combination), and wire up a nand or xor or some other logic gate to activate the 'real' pause modification when it senses the impossible combination.

 

This way, you are using existing wires, existing connectors, no outward mods need be done to the system. In fact, it would add 7 connections to the pause mod.

Don't forget track and field controllers, you can hit left and right at the same time. And I'd have to look at the coding, but the driving controllers connect wires in a odd combination as well. You wouldn't want to break Indy 500 by making it pause as you spun the wheel.

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A little off topic here, but kinda related... something I noticed recently.

 

I had a Genny 6 Button controller plugged in port two of my system and 'Star Raiders' picked it up as a touch pad.

Generally if you turn on 'Star Raiders' without a touchpad plugged in it starts you on the Galaxy Map and you cant do anything but move your cursor around. However with 6 Button pad plugged in port two it started the game in Foreward View. I was able to bring up the Galaxy Map by pressing Button C. However thats the only button that had any response regarding touchpad controls.

And it only worked with the 6 Button pad.

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