DIY Roller controller?

[S1500]

For those who can't find or afford a roller controller, how hard would it be to construct one's own? Like, perhaps, maybe with Audrino, you hook up a mouse to some circuitry & use the mouse + buttons as a roller controller.

 

How complicated are the innards for reading the motion of the trackball?

[Geoff Oltmans]

Shouldn't be too hard. There are two modes of operation that the controller uses... a joystick emulation mode which uses the normal directional inputs and the other as a normal trackball using the spinner inputs on each port (one for each direction). In trackball mode it uses a quadrature encoded optical pickup like any other mechanical trackball or mouse uses. You could use a mouse as you suggest, or scavenge a trackball from another system or an arcade parts shop.

[NIAD]

Collector's Card & Games website has a loose Roller Controller with Slither cart for $20. They have CIB Roller Controllers (box has water damage) for only $25 and state the controller and cart are in excellent condition.

 

http://www.collectorscardsandgames.com/new/Colecovision.html

Edited April 9, 2014 by NIAD

[coleconut]

Collector's Card & Games website has a loose Roller Controller with Slither cart for $20. They have CIB Roller Controllers (box has water damage) for only $25 and state the controller and cart are in excellent condition.

 

http://www.collectorscardsandgames.com/new/Colecovision.html

Just be prepared for a wait or. ..?

I ordered one of these a few weeks ago from him along with some other stuff. He replied next day that he has more outstanding orders than time to fill them. When I hadnt heard back I emailed again to which he replied again he was backlogged and anyway I wouldnt be happy with the condition of stuff Id ordered so forget it. Umm I knew what the condition was and didnt make any demands or stipulations so am confused by this response a little.

[S1500]

That's a great price for the controller & Slither(even though I have Slither), but the site isn't secure for ordering. It also looks badly put together.

[NIAD]

That's too bad as he has a lot of stuff listed that people are looking acquire. I guess he must be pretty busy to pass up a sale.

[S1500]

Sounds like we're at the Best Electronics retro level of e-commerce(ie none) here.

[SiLic0ne t0aD]

I was about to order one as well.. a NIB (box water damaged) Roller Controller. This will hold me over until I find a nice(cheap) CIB roller controller..

 

I will email him again to make sure he can mail in a timely fashion.. thanks for the info guys.

[mightywiz]

I ordered one from him and got it within a week, but this was during summer 2013.

 

the one I got had a button that sticks. haven't taken it apart to fix as of yet.