Mord's Blog

I agree, I can't use those controllers for a long period of time, either. I generally have a 2600 joystick plugged into my 7800, and will only torture myself with the 7800 controller for games that require two buttons. I do have some European 7800 pads somewhere--I need to track them down.

 

..Al

The 7800 "EuroPads" look cool, but unfortunately they're not much of an improvement (at least in my opinion). The controls are a too mushy, the d-pad doesn't register diagonals very well, and even new controllers tends to stick in certain directions. They're also not very ergonomic: the buttons are awkwardly placed, and the controllers themselves are a bit too narrow to hold comfortably for very long. I like the inexpensive way they hacked in a second button while retaining backward compatibility with single-button 2600 joysticks, but I wish they could have come up with higher-quality controls.

 

Since there are no third-party controllers that operate in the 7800's two-button mode (at least as far as I know), the best solution might be to buy or build a custom arcade-style controller. The Radica Space Invaders joystick is the best one I've used (I've actually built quite a few of them for others and still have a couple of new ones), but others have successfully retrofitted other TV-game controllers as 7800 joysticks as well. The only problem is that finding fully-pinned joystick cables can be a challenge these days. The only source I know of dried up a long time ago, and I've had to resort to pulling cables out of ProLines for the last few RSI sticks that I've built.

The 7800 "EuroPads" look cool, but unfortunately they're not much of an improvement (at least in my opinion).

 

Please leave me a glimmer of hope.

 

I still have to track some down after christmas some time tho. Even if they're a slight improvement, I'm probably willing to go for it. Of course, refitting an NES pad's insides would be kinda fun too. A shame I don't have the l33t skillz necessary for something like that.

 

Then again, knowing me I'd probably get carried away and try to set it up so all the buttons worked but it would be uncompatible obviously with existing games.