Rom Auto Detection of Controller(s) Used?

[Mot]

We know that the emulators (such as Mess, Stella…) auto detect the bankswitching used by looking for specific instructions in the ROM.

 

Example: Bankswitch method 3E is used when

STA $3E; 
LDA #$00

or in HEX 85 3E A9 00

is in the ROM.

 

Would it be as easy to see specific instructions in a ROM to detect that it uses the PADDLES (mostly) or JOYSTICK? And less important are: keyboard/kid/touchpad, and driving controller.

 

This would be useful if a Harmony(or other multicart) user would like a directory of PADDLE games/ROMs.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Maybe, thought less reliable than bankswitching.

 

But how would that be useful?

[Rybags]

For emulation it'd be easy since most games use just one controller type, so keymap or controller config could in theory be automatically set.

 

On real hardware, it's up to the user to have the proper controller inserted.

In a game where more than one type is supported there could be methods to detect what is being used:

 

- paddle, when not inserted shouldn't generate any chargeup through the port, when inserted will usually generate some voltage. But paddle set @ max resistance on the computer at least will generate max value same as if no paddle present.

 

- driving controller, uses Reed encoding which can return directional values which a joystick wouldn't normally generate.

 

But on real hardware in a multicart/menu situation with games that only support one controller type about the only use would be to prompt the user to insert the relevant controller type.

[Mot]

Maybe, thought less reliable than bankswitching.

 

But how would that be useful?

I could write a program to detect and write the PADDLE roms into a directory called paddle and then when I have the paddles out and want to play a few games I would select games from this directory.

 

Or have a program add (Paddles) to the ROM name.

 

I did modify the CC2ROMDB.TXT to have more information:

Demons to Diamonds Paddles DEMNSDIA 4K 78BIOS 7e18d535 Atari 2 P

Demons to Diamonds (PAL) Paddles DEMNDIAP 4K 78BIOS 3e7ece9b Atari 0 P

 

Like Controller (if other than joystick) in the title and new columns at the end: company, rarity, controller

 

But I only wrote the menu gen in java and no one seems to use or like java.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Mot

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Ah, got you. You want to automatically categorize them on your SD cart, right?

 

For that, you could use the information from Stella's database. Then you have all known ROMs sorted correctly.

[Mot]

Yes. Oh, I didn't know that Stella had a database.

Is this in the Stella emulator code or is this a web site?

Is this cataloged by ROM's CRC32 signatures?