Pole Position analog gas/brake hack rom

Swami · August 16, 2018

This is the rom for the Pole Position analog gas/brake hack. It can be used with standard controllers, as well as PC gameport controllers like the InterAct PC UltraRacer paddle with analog finger trigger, analog joysticks like the Advanced Gravis and some PC gameport racing wheel and wheel/pedal controllers. Gear shift is now done with the buttons, acceleration is up and braking is down. If you have a PC UltraRacer, the trigger on the back is used for acceleration and braking. If you have a Wheel and pedal controller, the pedals are used for gas and braking. It does work with the joysticks mentioned, as both the 5200 and Gravis sticks, among others, appear to have square gates, so you don't slow down when moving the stick horizontal in taking corners. For PC gameport controllers you will need the bohoki adapter or a homemade equivalent. This something I've wanted to try with the UltraRacer paddle and racing wheels for a while and have heard interest from several other people. This is the control method used by Car Fighter and, IIRC, some other driving games on the MSX computer. Paul, from playsoft, did a quick hack of pole position for us. He asked that I take care of making the rom available and explaining it, since I'm the one with the seven racing wheels, six kinds of paddles and 40 other controllers.

The start screen has choices for 1. digital, 2. 4 zone and 3. 8 zone. Digital will give you full acceleration or braking when you move the stick up or down, the 8 zone has 8 levels of acceleration and 8 levels of braking depending on how far you move the stick up or down. "4 zone" is similar, accept it has 4 zones. The 4 zone is designed for a narrower range of pot values in case your controller is in a little less than ideal shape; and digital should work even if it is in fairly rough calibration. You choose the zones with the keypad 1-3 of your controller, then the pole position screen comes up and you press reset and start as normal. Reset tells the 5200 to try to calibrate the controller, as it normally does.

I'd like to know if anyone who wants to play the game cannot use the 8 zone or 4 zone, as it will give us some idea how far from ideal controllers are out there and if the ranges should be modified. If you cannot use either zone, see the calibration test below and tell us what values you see for the pairs of numbers for full left, full right, full acceleration and full braking. Below is a description of a calibration meter above the three zone choices on the first screen and how to use it to evaluate your controller calibration.:

Above the three zone choices is a calibration test for horizontal and vertical range and centering. There are two hexadecimal values that run from 01 to E4. In hexadecimal, you go from 0 to 9, then A through F before starting with zero again: 01, 02,...08, 09, 0A, 0B, 0E, 0F, 10, 11, 12,...18, 19, 1A, 1B,...1E, 1F, 20, 21, and so on. After 9F, then next number is A0, then A1....A9, AA, AB. If you are having difficulties with your controller not accelerating or turning well, you can check your controller with the below method:

So, what you need to know is, with the controller at rest or center,

1. the first number, horizontal should be between about 60 and 80, and vary from 01-20 at full left to D0-E4 at full right.

2. the second number, vertical, should be between about 50 and 75, and vary from 01-07 at full up to over B5 at full down (the higher over B5, the more braking power you have, ideally going clear to around E0-E4). If your full up value is 01 to 07, you can use the 8 zone version, if it is not less than 08, but is between 08 and 17, you can use the 4 zone version, if full up is greater than 17, you should use the digital version, or you cannot reach top speed.

The ranges can be optimized by servicing your controller. Ideally, a standard 5200 controller with vary from 01 to E4 from full up to full down as well as from full left to full right.

This post had some additional information:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/281789-trying-againplease-answer-survey-about-racing-games-and-pc-wheels/?p=4091728

The PC UltraRacer is available on eBay for around $20-$30 and should work out of the box. PC gameport wheel/pedal setups are anywhere from $40 to $100, depending on newness and rarity, but finding one that is compatible or can be made compatible can take a little patience and research. See the note:

A bit of a disclaimer: The wheel and pedal controllers do require a somewhat cavalier attitude to dive into and probably be a bit of a tinkerer, although they can provide the most authentic arcade experience with the 5200. I was kind of hoping more people would just have them, like I do, and to check peoples experience, but since not a lot of people have them, there is some uncertainty. Some wheels and pedals will work "out of the box", such as the Saitek R100, MadCatz PC Analog, and probably some others, but as bohoki has said in other threads, some gameport pc wheels after about 1995 may not work, probably due to making them compatible with dos in windows or programmability. These are usually those with more than four "fire" buttons or more than two on wheel and two with shifter or programmable ones or require drivers to work in DOS. Also, some may require a simple rewiring of the pins, such as the Thrustmaster Formula T2, with a homemade adapter which can be easily made quickly with a couple very inexpensive DB15 breakout adapters, a couple capacitors and a couple 500k pots. The T2 has the gas and accelerator on the second x-axis, so it has to be wired to the y-axis and the +5V pot common is on pin 9 rather than pin 1. I also had to turn the pot base in the pedal chamber about half a turn for both gas and brake pot to get the resistance below 07 for the gas fully depressed. So, the Thustmaster wheels are probably for tinkerers only. I'd expect the follow-up Thrustmaster Nascar Pro for PC and predecessor Formula T1 to be similar, since they are the same brand. As mentioned above, the PC Ultraracer paddle with analog finger trigger should work out of the box.

pp_whack.bin