Analog stick & 4 buttons?

[iesposta]

If you built (or could buy) an analog joystick (2 paddles as the stick), and 4 buttons (digital stick as 4 buttons), what game or game style would be best for it?

Would it take too much processing to read such a stick? (I recall that is why there are only a few analog stick Vectrex games.)

 

I also thought about an adapter for Vectrex controllers to the Atari 2600, but since Vectrex controllers start around $100 and go up it may be cheaper to build one from scratch.

 

Fury Unlimited was making controllers, but says the parts are no longer available. I take that to mean the joystick potentiometer value compatible with the Vextrex is no longer available,

[BigO]

There are existing games that read multiple paddles so reading two paddles, or even 4 paddles at once is a done deal. Therefore, an analog joystick is technically feasible.

I thought of modding a PC joystick to play Marble Craze. http://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=99

Not sure if there are any 1 Meg pots that could be retrofit into any of the sticks I have, but that'd be the ideal way to do it.

 

The stock digital joystick is essentially reading 5 buttons at a time. But, you'd have to use the other port if you're reading two paddles at once on a port and want to do the 5 buttons at the same time.

 

Disclaimer: I haven't written any games myself so I don't know exactly how difficult it would be to do all of that at the same time in one game.

[iesposta]

Kind of a stupid question about reading both analog inputs now that I think about it and as pointed out many games read all four in game...

But I thought the pinpoint was this, why couldn't you have an analog stick and 4 or 5 buttons in one port?

[BigO]

Not really a stupid question. It was triggered by a stupid answer. I was incorrectly thinking of schemes where the paddle inputs were used as additional buttons (such as with the keypad controller: 7 inputs = 3x4 matrix) when I said that. As you are proposing, you should, electrically, be able to hook up all of those things at once.

 

I remember several discussions over the years about extended functionality controllers around here. You might find those interesting. I'll post a link if I can find one.

Edited June 9, 2014 by BigO

[BigO]

Oh, if you treat the 5 buttons as a scanned matrix, you could implement 6 buttons (2x3 matrix) with the 5 input lines. More programming overhead though.

[godzillajoe]

I'd love an adapter for the Vectrex controller. That might be my all-time favorite controller