9 pin gamepad with Vic

[RMila75]

Hello all...

Can anyone advise whether one of these el cheapo 9 pin gamepads would work correctly on a VIC 20?

I know they are probably fine with a 2600 and I know Genesis controllers should not be used with a VIC or 64, but these things have got me wondering.....

[carlsson]

Are you sure they will work on a 2600? The existence of Start, Select and four fire buttons suggests Famiclone to me. The Nintendo Famicom and NES uses a serial protocol through different connectors, but a number of clone systems implemented the same serial protocol through standard DE9 connectors. Here is an example of that, though there may be variations:

 

 

All of the Atari, Genesis, MSX etc pinouts are parallel in comparison - one pin each for up, down, left, right, fire and a common ground. The Genesis has a few more pins connected and swaps around the lines for ground and 5V which is what makes those dangerous to use on some other systems like the C64. Note that even on the Famiclone pinout above, the 5V pin is in the position where the VIC-20 and C64 would expect the fire button. The grey pin 7 which on the VIC/C64 actually contains 5V doesn't seem to be connected.

 

For that matter, the DE9 type of connector was used on the TI-99/4A, Channel F with detachable connectors and a number of other systems too, with inbetween incompatible pinouts and often not even the same type of signals but few people would mix up a Channel F joystick with a gamepad that just might work.

 

If you have a multimeter with sharp pins, you could try setting it for continuity, put one end into connector pin 8 (ground) and the other into pin 1-4 (UDLR) or 6 (fire). Then push some directions or buttons and see if the multimeter reads out a continuous result that the circuit is closed. If you get adequate results from such testing, you probably could go ahead and plug it in. Probably though the device really needs those 5V on pin 6 to function at all, so even plugging it in would make it appear not functional.

[carlsson]

Bingo? Internally they may be possible to rebuild to work as Atari/Commodore gamepads, by bypassing the electronics that produce the serial data but it would require a bit of soldering and patching, so possibly not really worth it unless the gamepad mechanically works very well.

 

Edited May 4, 2018 by carlsson