5-11under

I have been thinking about building an Arcade Controller for the ColecoVision for a long time. My main concern was the keypad. I won a set of keypads on ebay last night. If I make an Arcade Controller I will recess one of these keypads in the panel, and then I can use original or reproduction overlays. I would also use yellow, red, purple and blue arcade buttons so that Super Action games could be played. My layout from left to right would be keypad, 4 SA buttons in a diagonal line like back slash, then the joystick. None of that left handed joystick crap for me. I would then wire both controller ports to this one controller so that it was shared for 2 player games. I would use the guts from a SAC and run wires from it. Would be super cool to have a nice custom control panel overlay made. I would get the arcade buttons and joystick from http://www.happcontrols.com/ I didn't even know those keypads existed. I ended up getting some relatively cheap buttons via eBay.

That big red tree, for instance! The cart for sure has some fresh ideas, but the graphics are nothing special IMO. E.g that red tree is a simple static playfield, which a talented programmer can recreate within a hour or two. Have a look at later games like Solaris or certain modern homebrews to see what is really possible on the Atari 2600. I know. I was joking, as I'm guessing Red 5 was. I think the cart is a great idea, but even from an art perspective, I don't think the package is worth anywhere near $500. They're "prints", not "originals".

Is that a squirrel running about under the tree? /apologies to anyone who thinks this is worth more than $100.

That big red tree, for instance!

Here's a few switches. I like the first one :

Just a heads-up that this project is still in progress, after a typical delay. I've got my arcade controller nearly completed. Making the wood and acrylic box took a fair bit of work, and there were a couple of hiccups along the way. The wiring, however, was incredibly easy. The spinner circuitry has been tested. Just wire up a couple of reed relays (note: they're fragile ) and a wheel with a couple of magnets (or scoop the parts from a Super Action Controller), and you've got spinner capability. Have fun, 5-11under

Thanks for the info on the SAC. I hadn't seen these grips before today. For the speed roller, I'm thinking that maybe one of the two reed relays isn't working anymore. For the ball-knob, there's a orange cap on the top of the knob. Underneath it is the end of a bolt, and some sort of compression nut. Probably some of the orange plastic has been worn off through spinning, or the nut has become loose over time.

Hi there, I was doing some ColecoVision work today, and needed a Super Action Controller. I noticed there was a removable platic cover over the grip handle, to make the handle fatter. I found it worked quite well, making the switches closer to the end of the fingers. I didn't look through all my Super Action Controllers, but I think this is the only one I have that has this. Is this an aftermarket add-on, or were they included with each Super Action Controller... and usually lost? Here's a picture: http://gaming.wikia.com/wiki/ColecoVision_Super_Action_Controller Thanks, 5-11under

It would be nice, not sure if Al would be for it or not. Yes, I agree. Only problem is that there are others here, I believe, who are also providing services. If yours was pinned, by rights there's should be allowed also. Following would be a ColecoVision forum turned into a CV repair/refurb forum. Obviously not what might be intended, but a likely outcome, IMO. I second that motion. Either a new "ColecoVision Repairs" or "ColecoVision Hardware Issues" sub-forum would be great. I don't know if a sales thread should be pinned, but if you have any repair questions (or answers), there's this thread: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/163446-diy-modifications-for-colecovision/page__fromsearch__1

Power switch? Give it a blast of contact cleaner, to see if it gets any better... then clean it properly if it does. VDP chip (with the heat sink)? Replace... easier said than done. Video RAM? I've got my doubts in this case, but you never know. Circuitry past the VDP? Try a simple video mod, to see if that works... I've had some successes with this. I've also had it where a component mod fixes it, too.

I like pretty much that whole site. Lots of good information.

Birds of the same feather flock together. It's better to give good arguments or proof rather than play party politics. I'm just admiring his post. I'm biased for sure, but regardless, I do find ledzep's (and koolkitty's, and potatohead's - maybe others I've forgotten, too) posts to be generally very well thought out, and I agree with many of their posts. They say it better than I can, so I give them a "+1" on occasion. This time, I thought it worthwhile to "post" the "+1", that's all. He was definitely on a roll. Thanks for admitting you're biased. At least that's better than saying what you have been saying before. I give an inch, and you need to take more, eh? Anyway, I take nothing back from what I've said before. Moving on, I love ledzep's fretless bass guitar example. It's great, because you can "picture" the beauty of the resulting music. The same can be said about violins, trombones, slide guitars, and plenty more, I'm sure. There's beauty in being able to slide into a note, and change the pitch of a "note" over time. The good players have immense control over the pitch at any time, and use the available variability of pitch to their advantage. Otherwise, they'd be playing fretted instruments, most likely. Note that even fretted instruments (and many non-stringed instruments) still have much control over pitch. You can bend strings or apply different amounts of tension to the string to gain more control over the resulting pitch. I think the above levels of "analog" control can be useful, beneficial, and even beautiful, for videogames.

Birds of the same feather flock together. It's better to give good arguments or proof rather than play party politics. I'm just admiring his post. I'm biased for sure, but regardless, I do find ledzep's (and koolkitty's, and potatohead's - maybe others I've forgotten, too) posts to be generally very well thought out, and I agree with many of their posts. They say it better than I can, so I give them a "+1" on occasion. This time, I thought it worthwhile to "post" the "+1", that's all. He was definitely on a roll.

Something's wrong with my computer. I tried to click the "+1" on ledzep's last post about 20 times, but after the first click, the "+" disappeared. edit: his second last post... #469.

http://www.colecovision.dk/clones.htm

Sounds good. I guess if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I've never looked at this on a 2600 Jr. specifically, but I'm guessing it's corrosion (or burning from high current, although I find that hard to believe). Either way, some gentle scrubbing with a pink eraser should help.

Hey Yurkie, I hope you've still got a day job... for the amount of work you're doing, it looks like this is taking up a lot of your time.

Dammit man, what do you think this is, some kind of social forum? This is a WAR!!! Nice, that made me laugh. Hey, aren't you from the "peace-keeping nation" from the north. Oh well, I guess that adage is from past history.

Given your previous wrong information about digital joystick being implementable with an analog joystick, people are better off not following your advice blindly. Taking it logically, you are advising people to refrain from reading something that you admit you yourself haven't read. You fit in perfectly with those blind leading the blind. Your advice is also self-contradictory which you would have realized if you weren't so emotional. If thread is just crap, then it follows that your post is also which is part of this thread. Since you are opposed to others posts who don't think it's crap, it follows that its only your stuff that's crap since both P & -P cannot be true simultaneously in this case. First of all it was a joke. Relax. What do you mean my previous wrong information about digital joystick being implementable with an analog joystick? Tell me why that is not possible, in theory. Seriously. I guess you read a lot less of the thread than I thought. That's been disproven almost throughout the thread. As recently as post #420 and its references as a start. Oi! Never mind most of the thread, and the fact I haven't read all of it. I've read enough of it, so let it go. It's mostly drivel on top of drivel anyway... and yes, I contributed to it. No, I just proved to you that what YOU wrote was crap or drivel LOGICALLY. It doesn't matter what you think, it's what is logically proven. I knew you blew it that's why I didn't bother answering you. You were just looking for another chance to mock everything since you are completely inept at understanding the proof. You should open up your mind that changing the hardware of the joystick is no option. With an analog joystick, the inherent flaws and uncertainty remain. By the way, you didn't really address the points made in post #420 and you are narrow-minded to even read the refutations. Again, back to what you actually are: blind following the blind, or blind leading the blind. Crap, I'm being tag-teamed now. Your post is just more drivel. Logical drivel perhaps, but drivel nonetheless. What's all this talk about "doesn't matter what you think", "you blew it", and "completely inept". That's nonsense, and is not contributing to the discussion. It sure does. You write drivel while others experiment and prove things. There's a BIG difference there. And just claiming something is drivel doesn't make it so. Maybe in your imaginary world where you can call things drivel without even reading them. You have no qualifcation to judge things you no nothing about. QED. Get to the facts. Post a schematic of the hardware modifications that give you exactly what a digital joystick does and we'll see if it even qualifies as an analog joystick. Slow down with the "you know nothing about" and that silly "QED". I understand the hardware and the software involved here. We're both piling the drivel. I just told you some of what is required or could be useful: restrictor to limit movement, potentiometers on both ends of the existing potentiometer(s) to affect the center point, potentiometers in parallel with both sides of the center tap to the ends to adjust the range, if necessary. It's still an analog joystick, but feels and reacts like a digital joystick. Think about what you have in a digital joystick, when moving right, for instance. Depending on the joystick, there's a certain amount of looseness in the center. You move to the right, and at a certain point, the switch makes contact. You may be able to move a bit further to the right, but at some point, you won't be able to move the joystick any further. There will be other effects during this travel, such as some level of springiness, which wants to center the joystick. You might also feel or hear the click of the switch. I don't think I'm missing too much of significance here, but I'm sure you'll find something. Anyway, these items are not terribly difficult to mimic in an analog joystick. I agree that most analog joysticks do nothing like this, but it is possible, and quite feasible. Feeling or hearing the click of the switch may be a bit more difficult, but I think the restriction in movement is likely good enough. I don't usually pay attention to this; I just slam the joystick to the end of the travel.

Given your previous wrong information about digital joystick being implementable with an analog joystick, people are better off not following your advice blindly. Taking it logically, you are advising people to refrain from reading something that you admit you yourself haven't read. You fit in perfectly with those blind leading the blind. Your advice is also self-contradictory which you would have realized if you weren't so emotional. If thread is just crap, then it follows that your post is also which is part of this thread. Since you are opposed to others posts who don't think it's crap, it follows that its only your stuff that's crap since both P & -P cannot be true simultaneously in this case. First of all it was a joke. Relax. Wrong. It wasn't a joke, it was self-contradictory item; also knows as "shooting oneself in the foot." You used that excuse so you get another chance. There's no joke in your mocking since you modified it in your next post. It's now clearly evident for anyone to see. It's you who need to relax as proven above. Deceptive manipulative narrow-mindedness are words to describe your style. Wow. Deceptive, manipulative, and narrow-minded, eh? No, just a bit of fun, although perhaps intended towards you. Apologies if I'm offending you. Jokes aren't much fun if you need to explain them, but note the sarcasm in the first line, and the "cut-off" sentence in the second line. It was supposed to give you or perhaps just others a chuckle, but apparently everything needs to be very serious.

Given your previous wrong information about digital joystick being implementable with an analog joystick, people are better off not following your advice blindly. Taking it logically, you are advising people to refrain from reading something that you admit you yourself haven't read. You fit in perfectly with those blind leading the blind. Your advice is also self-contradictory which you would have realized if you weren't so emotional. If thread is just crap, then it follows that your post is also which is part of this thread. Since you are opposed to others posts who don't think it's crap, it follows that its only your stuff that's crap since both P & -P cannot be true simultaneously in this case. First of all it was a joke. Relax. What do you mean my previous wrong information about digital joystick being implementable with an analog joystick? Tell me why that is not possible, in theory. Seriously. I guess you read a lot less of the thread than I thought. That's been disproven almost throughout the thread. As recently as post #420 and its references as a start. Oi! Never mind most of the thread, and the fact I haven't read all of it. I've read enough of it, so let it go. It's mostly drivel on top of drivel anyway... and yes, I contributed to it. No, I just proved to you that what YOU wrote was crap or drivel LOGICALLY. It doesn't matter what you think, it's what is logically proven. I knew you blew it that's why I didn't bother answering you. You were just looking for another chance to mock everything since you are completely inept at understanding the proof. You should open up your mind that changing the hardware of the joystick is no option. With an analog joystick, the inherent flaws and uncertainty remain. By the way, you didn't really address the points made in post #420 and you are narrow-minded to even read the refutations. Again, back to what you actually are: blind following the blind, or blind leading the blind. Crap, I'm being tag-teamed now. Your post is just more drivel. Logical drivel perhaps, but drivel nonetheless. What's all this talk about "doesn't matter what you think", "you blew it", and "completely inept". That's nonsense, and is not contributing to the discussion. My solution removes uncertainty, and, using your language, removes the apparent "inherent flaws" you speak of. You should open up your mind that changing the hardware of the joystick is an option. Why not?

Given your previous wrong information about digital joystick being implementable with an analog joystick, people are better off not following your advice blindly. Taking it logically, you are advising people to refrain from reading something that you admit you yourself haven't read. You fit in perfectly with those blind leading the blind. Your advice is also self-contradictory which you would have realized if you weren't so emotional. If thread is just crap, then it follows that your post is also which is part of this thread. Since you are opposed to others posts who don't think it's crap, it follows that its only your stuff that's crap since both P & -P cannot be true simultaneously in this case. First of all it was a joke. Relax. What do you mean my previous wrong information about digital joystick being implementable with an analog joystick? Tell me why that is not possible, in theory. Seriously. I guess you read a lot less of the thread than I thought. That's been disproven almost throughout the thread. As recently as post #420 and its references as a start. Oi! Never mind most of the thread, and the fact I haven't read all of it. I've read enough of it, so let it go. It's mostly drivel on top of drivel anyway... and yes, I contributed to it. Back on track... open up your mind to things that could be done with an analog joystick, fairly easily... add a restrictor to limit the movement, if the throw is too long... adjust the range, using potentiometers, so moving to the left or right a certain amount (of your choosing) activates the intended direction at exactly the desired angle. Set up the springiness so that the return to center is ideal. I've already proven this once, about 12 pages ago. Maybe you haven't read that part.

Given your previous wrong information about digital joystick being implementable with an analog joystick, people are better off not following your advice blindly. Taking it logically, you are advising people to refrain from reading something that you admit you yourself haven't read. You fit in perfectly with those blind leading the blind. Your advice is also self-contradictory which you would have realized if you weren't so emotional. If thread is just crap, then it follows that your post is also which is part of this thread. Since you are opposed to others posts who don't think it's crap, it follows that its only your stuff that's crap since both P & -P cannot be true simultaneously in this case. First of all it was a joke. Relax. What do you mean my previous wrong information about digital joystick being implementable with an analog joystick? Tell me why that is not possible, in theory. Seriously.

I feel so bad now that I haven't read every post in this thread. I suggest that anyone who hasn't read every word of this thread refrain from pos