ave1

The games I've been playing lately are Stargate and Millipede. Lots of fun here!

For those of you who didn't want to deal with the hassle of modifying an Atari Flashback mini-7800 controller so it'd work with the Android emulator, I just found out that the mini-7800 joystick can directly work with this: http://www.amazon.com/SUPER-NES-FAMICOM-MEGADRIVE-Controller-Adapter/dp/B00HZWINQY Now to get it working on Android you just have to add on an OTG cable (USB to micro-USB) to the controller connected to the new USB adapter... and hopefully it's going to be configurable using the BT/USB Joystick Center app. The Amazon reviewers are giving the adapter low scores because db-9 port on the adapter doesn't work with a Genesis/Megadrive controller. That port is for a Famicon clone controller (ie. mini-7800 controller), so I'm thinking it's not such a low-scoring product after all It's also nice that it'll get your SNES controllers working, too. I figured out it was a Famicon controller port after reading info on another one of Mayflash's controller adapters here: https://satoshimatrix.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/160/

I own this game for my T.I. 99-4/a computer and have enjoyed it since the 80s. Nice game to pick!

Oh, and we got very good at playing it. Lots of fun

I can answer about Baseball. Fielding is done by tapping a certain specified direction on the joystick for the fielder you want- once for infield player and twice for outfield player. Then you run him around with the joystick to get to the ball. Throwing in from the outfield is done the same way (tap the joystick in a certain specified direction). Batting is done by pressing the red button while pressing the stick up, down, left, or right for specific types of swings. It all makes sense when you play for a while. I used to play it a lot with my dad back in the 80s.

I will see if I can try it out tomorrow and get back to you

Yeah! Oh, it's sooo nice having these options after all these years 8D Let me know how you like it when it arrives. Today I tried my Ultra Racer PC controller out on Pole Position, and it really makes for a better game. I also picked up a Gravis "PCgamepad" today at the thrift store and am really liking that it has a switch to allow the digital gamepad to be flipped around for some right-hand d-pad fun if you choose to do that. I think playing Centipede that way feels great. The PCgamepad I have did not come with the screw-in mini joystick, but I found that the mini stick that I have for my Gravis Gamepad Pro is compatible- so I'm even more happy to get another nice way to play my games.

Got it! Hey, if anyone here wants to try an unconventional controller on their 5200, this might be of interest: http://www.unitedgame.com/proddetail.php?prod=PC I am going to do a video review of it along with some of my other PC/5200 controllers on Youtube. The controller has a digital mode and an analog mode (involves rotating or tilting the top gamepad around), and I can confirm that both modes work great with the PC gameport/5200 adapter. Someone put some nice pics of it on an Ebay listing, so I'll just show you them from Imgur: http://imgur.com/Sr07JEw http://imgur.com/w2dxYYQ http://imgur.com/qL8d1C3

Mine has no diagram at the bottom... I clicked the switch to a new position and it's working now- can't believe I missed that! Thanks for the advice, it is a nice controller.

The red button Gravis actually has only one problem- none of the fire buttons work. I got it at a thrift store, so I'm figuring it's defective or needs to be taken apart and cleaned. Maybe I'll try that this evening... thanks for the heads up. Yep, my controller collection is definitely large...

Alright, I remembered that I owned 4 PC gamepads, so I tried 'em out. My Gravis Gamepad Pro controller that is shaped like a PS1 controller (without analog sticks) doesn't work and neither does my Playstation-like Saitek P750. Fortunately, the other two work and I've attached a picture of them. One is a Thrustmaster knock-off of the U.S. Saturn gamepad (version 1) which- thanks to the way they designed the d-pad- actually is very responsive for playing 5200 Ms. Pac-Man among other games. The other gamepad in the picture has a removable thumbstick which complements the big size for anyone out there who likes a larger controller to grapple when gaming. So far I like the gamepads, but the joysticks are really what I prefer... especially the Gravis black and gray joystick (shown in yesterday's picture).

Welcome to the wild wacky land of the Atari 5200. Get the right controllers for the right games and you'll begin to really appreciate it. Glad to hear the Trackball works. My 1st one didn't, but the second does work (got it up in Chicago at a video game store in 2013)... Having one of these makes it a stellar arcade experience on Centipede and Missile Command especially. I'm going to have to try it on Galaxian... sounds great

... and, since my I am having trouble with uploading the picture via the Atariage uploader, here's a link to a picture showing the controllers which work fabulously: http://imgur.com/eLqdRXK I also tried this joystick out: http://imgur.com/blADGT2 I can control things with it but there are trim problems (everything steers toward the left and up)... and it seems that the Y and X axis trim knobs on the controller are not doing anything when turned clockwise or counterclockwise. So I have a feeling the joystick is defective and that one which isn't defective will actually work with the adapter on the 5200 I think I'll look for a non-defective one because it's a real gem.

Got mine in the mail today and found all the PC Joysticks and gamepads I had in the basement. These are the incompatible ones.

I don't own an Ouya, but you could check this out: http://ouyaforum.com/showthread.php?10951-Atari-7800-emulator Hopefully that works for you. Also check out the post at the bottom of this page. It gives info about using a USB-based controller on Ouya that's been rooted: https://forums.ouya.tv/discussion/comment/24697/#Comment_24697 From what I see in that post, the USB/BT Joystick Center app has been put to good use by the Ouya owner with a good description of how it's done on this blog: http://saesnotes.blogspot.com

Thanks for the new emulator- I will download and try it out. I have enjoyed playing 7800 Android emulator games with my bluetooth Moga Hero Power controller, but I'd pick the wired Flashback mini-7800 controller over it any day because I guess it just feels much more like an authentic Atari experience Thanks for letting me know you appreciate the tutorial!

Alright, here is the NES controller-to-Android-Atari-7800-Emulator tutorial that I had promised the other day. This can also be considered to be an Atari Flashback mini-7800 controller-to-Android-Atari-7800-Emulator tutorial. I am not going into the specific details of how to make a cable that converts the Flashback mini-7800 controller's db-9 plug into an NES controller plug, but it's an easy project. In fact, you can just snip off the end of the cord of a Flashback controller and connect the proper 5 wires of the controller to the proper 5 wires of a snipped-off end of an NES controller wire and wrap it in electrical tape if you want. If you don't want to snip off the end of your Flashback mini-7800 controller, you can make an adapter with a male db-9 connector that gets connected to the snipped-off end of an NES controller cord. There are helpful pinouts/color-wire schematics for both the NES controller and Flashback controller online to help you accomplish this. Once you have the right plug on the end of the Flashback controller cord, you'll just want to plug that into a Tomee NES to USB adapter and then plug that into an OTG cable (USB to micro-USB cable) to connect to your Android. In the tutorial you will see asterisks which are essentially troubleshooting tips that you might want to pay special attention to. Use of brackets has to do with nuances of the Flashback mini-7800 controller (not applicable to any other NES gamepad or NES-compatible controller). Another thing- if you take your modified Flashback controller to an NES console and try to play, you are likely to have a problem with going left consistently. Fortunately, this doesn't happen with the controller plugged into an Android device. Okay, without further ado, here is the tutorial: Objective: Get an NES controller (Atari Flashback mini-7800 controller with adapter) to effectively play games on the Atari 7800 Android Emulator on a tablet or phone that is not rooted. You need an App that gets your Android to recognize controller buttons and d-pad presses as specific keyboard keys (since the 7800 Android Emulator offers IME support). Follow the steps: 1) Download USB/BT Joystick Center Free App on your Android phone or tablet. When I last looked, it was not currently available via GooglePlay. I found the app through the websource, Appjenny. As of today (June 25, 2015) a Google search using the name of the app and "appjenny" can turn it up... 2) Download the Atari 7800 Android Emulator (not on GooglePlay). For info on its location, scroll up to the first posts in this topic. This tutorial is specific to the Android Atari 7800 Emulator App which was designed for use with the JXD S7800B handheld console. 3) Go to Settings in your Android. If you have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4, select "controls" which allows you to make a selection within "keyboards and input methods." If you have a Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone, go to "my device" and select "language and input." Other android devices should not be much different from this. Once you see "USB JoyFree IME", put a checkmark next to it and make sure no other language/keyboard & input options have a checkmark. 4) Open USB/BT App and turn on "IME," and select to activate it. 5) Plug in NES-compatible controller with adapters to your Android's micro-USB port (see 1st paragraph). 6) Press "Search Normal" devices and click OK on the allow access pop-up window. 7) The device that has been found ("Xenta device") is now displayed. Select it. 8 ) Below the found device button is where you find the key-mapping scroller. Swipe through the options until you come to d-pad left, right, up, and down. For each one of these keyboard keys, tap the screen to select a specific direction and press on the NES-compatible controller d-pad/joystick to set the corresponding controller d-pad/joystick direction. If everything is connected properly, each selected scroller key will respond by turning red as confirmation. 9) Next you are going to set keyboard keys A, B, X, and Y to correspond to your NES controller Start, A button, Select, and B button (in that order). [The Atari Flashback mini-7800 controller mapping on keyboard keys B and Y are swapped in order to ensure the left controller button (NES controller button B) is the primary fire button in Atari 7800 games which employ two independent buttons. Don't get confused here- button B on the mapping of the keyboard is not the same as NES controller button B. They are independent of each other. Also, be aware that on the Flashback controller, the Start button is labeled as "Pause".] For an actual NES controller, Use the keymapping scroller to scroll to "A" and press the controller start button. Scroll to "B" and press the controller's A button. Scroll to "X" and press the controller's Select button. Scroll to "Y" and press the controller's B button. [Again, I'll point out here that you need to swap the A and B controller buttons if setting things up for a Flashback controller.] 10) Save the set-up. Make sure to use a name for that particular set-up that you'll recognize (I delineated mine with the letter 'A'). The app allows for more than one set-up save, so pick a name for alternate controller set-ups ('B' for instance). 11) ***If at any time you get a message in the USB/BT Joystick Center App that says your device (NES controller) is dead, close the App and turn off your Android. Turn it back on and get back into the App to check and - if necessary - set up d-pad directions and button assignments all over again. I found that this happens when my OTG cable isn't secure in the tablet or phone micro-USB port.*** 12) Press "Driver". Within the "Driver" part of the App you now have to make selections to ensure the NES-compatible controller will be recognized. There is an arrangement of small hashmarks shown on the screen. In the App, a group of 8 hashmarks is called a "byte" while each individual hashmark is called a "bit". 13) There should only be 8 bytes showing on the screen with a total of 64 bits present. If there are less than 8, move the vertical slider on the left side of the screen down a little. Move it up a little if there are more than 8 bytes. Once you've reached 8, you're good. 14) On the top left selector, you'll see a representation of three methods of game controller inputs: Button icon, Joystick icon, & Slider icon. Slider will not be used. 15) First, touch the Button icon which is the uppermost icon. Once it is shown in the top center of the screen, touch it and press the A button of your NES-compatible controller. One of the bits will be affected (blinking on and off) when you repeatedly press the game controller button. Touch the affected bit and it will be activated. Now when you press the A button on the game controller and release it the button on the top center of the screen will respond like it is being pressed down and released. 16) On the top left selector, once again select Button icon. Once it is shown in the top center of the screen (with a number 2 next to it) touch it and press the B button of your NES compatible controller. Repeat what you did for button A, for button B. You may be inclined to repeat the process for your Start and Select buttons, but I found out that they don't need to be assigned within the Driver modifier. If you choose to assign them, though, that's fine. 17) On the top left selector, select Joystick icon. It will be shown in the top center of the screen with a number 3 next to it. Touch it. When pressing on different directions of the controller d-pad you'll notice large and small groups of bits being affected within the first five bytes. The instructions within the app state that 2 or 4 bytes are to be expected to be blinking on and off, and that every bit within the 2 bytes or 4 bytes should be touched (and thus activated). Now, my tablet was showing 5 affected bytes with a roll of my thumb over the controller's d-pad and this made me concerned that the app wasn't going to work with my controller's d-pad. Fortunately, though, some trial and error experimenting revealed what was needed to properly activate the d-pad- Press/touch every bit in the first two affected bytes, but leave the other 3 affected bytes alone. Now when you press the D-pad in different directions the joystick on the screen will respond with proper movement. 18) Press the back button and go ahead and save once again. 19) Press the back button on your Android to leave the App. ***see number 11 again if at any time the controller is indicated as dead.*** 20) Download an Atari 7800 game ROM which is a game which employs two buttons (I chose Choplifter). Make sure you pay attention to where in your Android it is stored. 20) Open your Android Atari 7800 emulator and check to see that your controller is active by pressing up and down on the d-pad/joystick. Start the game by selecting 'Load Rom' in the front-end menu (this is done by pressing left on the d-pad/joystick) and then figure out how to use buttons and d-pad on the controller to navigate the files of your Android to find your stored game. The two dots at the top of the navigating screen can be used to back up within the Android system files. Once the game starts, back out of the game to go back to the emulator menu. Then select 'Keyboard' from the front-end menu. You should see "Game: Choplifter" up in the corner. This is how I set up the keyboard: Skin: default Mapping: standard Up: J1 up Down: J1 down Left: J1 left Right: J1 right X: J1 Fire 1 A: J1 Fire 2 Y: L Diff B: R Diff L Trigger: L Mapping R Trigger: R Mapping Joy Fire: J1 Fire 1 (J1 Fire 2 can also work) Joy Up: J1 up Joy Down: J1 Down Joy Left: J1 Left Joy Right: J1 Right Press "save keyboard" and exit out to the menu where you can go back to playing the game by activating "load rom" by pressing left on the analog stick. Enjoy playing your one and two button 7800 games with your NES controller or modified Atari Flashback mini-7800 controller. This tutorial may also be helpful in getting other controllers to work with the USB/BT Joystick Center App on various game system emulators, so consider trying to get your Genesis or older Atari joysticks/joypads/paddles working along with a Blissbox or some other adapter. Whatever you do, make sure you have fun!

I think I have a Xonox double ender that is PAL- Robin Hood/Sir Lancelot and I also have Asterix...

I need one of these!!!

Here are mine: 10 Zool 2 (especially like the sound effects in this one) 9 Wolfenstein (runs so fast and smooth- I really began to like holding the Jag controller after spending a lot of time playing this game...) 8 Missile Command 3D (pretty cool implementation of a new take on an old idea.) 7 Rayman (very nice graphics and gameplay for its time.) 6 White Men Can't Jump (AKA Get off me Chump!) 5 Cybermorph (I learned to drive playing Cybermorph by avoiding the ground) 4) Power Drive Rally (really like these kinda games? Also try Karnaaj Rally on the GBA) 3) AvP (I was mesmerized by this gamefor a couple months) 2) Iron Soldier (both games are top-tier mech games) 1) Tempest 2000 (Still am trying to play better after 20 years- and that really says something about Minter's accomplishment. This is one of the best games of all time.)

You could buy a 10db video signal amplifier: http://www.amazon.com/RCA-10dB-Video-Signal-Amplifier/dp/B000N7FQB8 I really appreciate mine

If you look closely, you might notice the Wii system is $159- and this was taken earlier this year at a local thrift store near downtown Columbus, Ohio. ...just the used console, power supply, a common game everybody has, and the av cable. O_o

Awesome information- You, sir, are an expert. And thanks for letting us know about the M.S. lightgun. I no longer will ponder grabbing one off EBay.

So, I'm interested in finding out the steps I'd have to go through to update that prosystem.dat file in the installer. . . First where does one go to find the update? I have been making some progress on getting classic controllers into use with the 7800 emulator. I own a Flashback controller (the mini-7800 one which uses NES controller protocol even though it has a db9 connector on the end of its cord) which I am now effectively using to play all my 7800 games This requires using three adapters (one of which is easily made with a NES controller cord having 5 of its inner wires soldered to the appropriate 5 pins of a db9 (9 pin) male connector end). The second adapter is an NES to usb adapter made by Tomee. The third adapter is an OTG cable (usb to micro-usb). You plug the Atari Flashback controller female db9 connector end into the homemade male db9 adapter which has an NES connector at its end which then plugs into the Tomee adapter and the the USB end of that gets plugged into the OTG cable which connects to your tablet or phone via its micro-usb end. (Or you can just use an NES controller instead along with the Tomee adapter and OTG cable). Once you've got the controller hooked up, you've won half the battle. But you need an appropriate app... I had to use an obscure and hard-to-find Android app called USB/BT Joystick Center Free to convert button presses of the controller into keyboard key presses that the Emulator is compatible with. In order to obtain this controller/keyboard app (which isn't available anymore on Google Playstore) do a Google search using the following keywords: Appjenny usb/bt joystick, and click on the first webpage in the results. Getting the driver working within the app required a lot of trial and error tinkering with the program's bits and bytes. I will see if I can give the details of how one goes about getting the app to work right with the emulator in the next couple days when I have the time... eventually somebody might benefit from the tutorial If the 7800 Android emulator (designed for the China JXD Android tablet/gamepad with built in thumbstick and buttons) had been made with a more convenient external controller mapping feature, it certainly would have made things easier. But, alas, it was preset to work with internal controls for that particular device and is therefore not terribly friendly to an outsider like me (lacking the JXD7800 device). Oh well, I did end up succeeding in getting everything working effectively somehow. And, I'm happy to say that the payoff has been very rewarding- especially when considering that I'm using the really nice Atari Flashback controller to play 7800 games.

My friend has not been able to find his Master System lightgun, so someone else besides me may have to try it out on the 7800 using the Seagull 78 (and maybe a Sega Autofire Adapter) so we can know if it'd work... Anyone interested in pulling the trigger?