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Introducing: Edladdin Controllers for the 7800


edladdin

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No - none of our products are limited run or have specific numbers available. He's probably referring more generally to the fact that little companies come and go over the years.

 

Hopefully Edladdin will be serving the retro community for years to come! Clearly a few arcade controllers a month is not enough to support a business, but it has been an easy "bolt on" to the main business, which is producing sound therapy systems under the BETAR brand (www.betar.com). We also serve as a speciality electronics shop, designing and building small runs of devices for third party firms to market under their own brand names. My dad started the company in 1978, then my sister and I inherited it when Dad passed in 2004, so we've been at this for a while and definitely plan to continue. Along with one more full time and a part time employee, we all support our families this way, so there are no day jobs for us to fall back on.

 

In fact, the medium term plan for Edladdin is to add more products so we can serve a wider swath of the retro community and build economies of scale with our vendors. At this moment we are in the home stretch on development of a mega adapter for the Colecovision (use 4 different controllers with either the vintage or Flashback version of the CV console) and an arcade controller for the same. After that we plan to produce an arcade controller for the 5200 and a USB version of our controllers for the emulation crowd.

 

After one year it's been a ton of fun! I've made new friends and participated in a variety of great events. It also makes me very proud to get strong positive feedback on the products, to hear guys talk about how great the gameplay becomes with our gear. When I was 11 having a job at Atari was the ultimate fantasy - Edladdin Controllers has allowed a little piece of that dream to come true! :-)

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I have been thinking about picking up a controller for Robotron . Do you have photos of one ?

 

Sure! Here are a few...

  • The cases are aluminum - 14" wide by 8" deep.
  • Joysticks are Sanwa with octagonal restrictor plates, so you have indents at 4 and 8 way positions - a decent compromise.
  • Buttons are Suzo-Happ.

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Have you thought about an intellivision adapter of some kind? Or possibly an arcade controller for the intellivision?

 

 

I never had an Intellivision back in the Ferg, so forgive what might be a dumb question... Aren't the Intellivision controllers permanently attached to the console?

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I never had an Intellivision back in the Ferg, so forgive what might be a dumb question... Aren't the Intellivision controllers permanently attached to the console?

 

The inty 2 had removable controllers. The Inty 1 and 3 controllers detached inside the Intellivision.

 

Mitch

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I never had an Intellivision back in the Ferg, so forgive what might be a dumb question... Aren't the Intellivision controllers permanently attached to the console?

 

Do they make a 16 direction joystick you can use in your products?

I'm only asking because the disc on the controller was 16 ways.

It would be amazing if somehow you could make a 16 way INTV joystick, with keypad that could fit overlays and two output cords for both models of intellivisions.

Of course, they best people to talk about this would be the hosts of the Intellivisionaires about specifics.

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Yes! Wonderful video review and showcase by The No Swear Gamer!

 

Thanks Phil!

 

PS: Great show today! I got started working on my first audio submission for you and got bogged down trying to find a chip-tunes version of genie music... You know, cause there is so much of that out there... ;-)

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Does anyone know if the Seagull 78 adapter will allow the Genesis controller to be properly recognized on the Harmony flash cart (without having to hold the B button on startup)? Pretty specific question, I knowm

 

Sorry for the long delay... I just today got my 7800 back from being modded by Joe at Electronic Sentimentalities.

 

I tried turning on the console with a Harmony cart in the slot and a knock-off six button Sega Genesis gamepad plugged into a Seagull 78 as the sole controller. Everything booted fine with no problems, delivering me to the Harmony cart's main menu. I did not have to hold any buttons down during startup.

 

I hope this helps!

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Sorry for the long delay... I just today got my 7800 back from being modded by Joe at Electronic Sentimentalities.

 

I tried turning on the console with a Harmony cart in the slot and a knock-off six button Sega Genesis gamepad plugged into a Seagull 78 as the sole controller. Everything booted fine with no problems, delivering me to the Harmony cart's main menu. I did not have to hold any buttons down during startup.

 

I hope this helps!

Hi,

 

Thanks for checking. You will be able to get to the menu without holding the B button. You will not be able to navigate the menu, though. Are you able to navigate the menu?

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Hi,

 

Thanks for checking. You will be able to get to the menu without holding the B button. You will not be able to navigate the menu, though. Are you able to navigate the menu?

 

Yes, everything works fine. Without touching the controller, the Harmony cart boots to the menu. Then I used the D-pad to navigate in the menu, then either "B" or "C" buttons to make selections within the menu.

 

I can make a little video if you'd like to see it in action.

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Yes, everything works fine. Without touching the controller, the Harmony cart boots to the menu. Then I used the D-pad to navigate in the menu, then either "B" or "C" buttons to make selections within the menu.

 

I can make a little video if you'd like to see it in action.

No need to do that! :) I appreciate you checking, this just made it a must buy for me

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Do they make a 16 direction joystick you can use in your products?

I'm only asking because the disc on the controller was 16 ways.

It would be amazing if somehow you could make a 16 way INTV joystick, with keypad that could fit overlays and two output cords for both models of intellivisions.

Of course, they best people to talk about this would be the hosts of the Intellivisionaires about specifics.

 

I have never seen a 16-way joystick!

 

Suzo-Happ makes a 49 way optical joystick (ala Sinistar), but its really expensive at $98.77 for just the stick. Ultimarc sells one at $59, but you'd still have to design an interface board with a microprocessor to translate the signal information from the joystick to the 16 inputs expected by the Intellivision. Not impossible by any means, but an expensive undertaking.

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The inty 2 had removable controllers. The Inty 1 and 3 controllers detached inside the Intellivision.

 

Mitch

 

Well this info changes the equation! I had never given it any thought, but if there are normal DB9 connectors inside the console shell it would be worth considering.

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It would be amazing if somehow you could make a 16 way INTV joystick, with keypad that could fit overlays and two output cords for both models of intellivisions.

 

 

Making the keypad in such a way to hold the overlays is a hideously expensive proposition in the tiny volumes that the community could support, as you'd have to have injection molds made to make the custom plastic part. The parts themselves would be pennies each, but every time I have looked into having molds made its a minimum starting price of $10,000 for a mold for something small. No big deal if you are manufacturing hundreds of thousands of Intellivisions, but its a deal-killer for a couple hundred pieces. Perhaps there is an economical option now that 3D printing is a real thing?

 

Even still, at those prices it would probably make more sense to replace the physical keypad with a small touchscreen monitor that could be programmed to display virtual keys OR the specific overlay for each game as a graphic. No more lost overlays to worry about!

 

Even that solution would be incredibly expensive as compared with making a simple membrane keypad such as you find on a microwave oven. The quotes I have gotten for the Seagull CV project put these keypads at $2-3 each, though you have to buy 500 pieces at a time. Rather than make a custom overlay holder such as you see on the Coleco controllers, we've been proceeding with the idea the Colecovision player would place the overlay on the table next to the adapter and refer to it as needed. ;-)

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Hi guys,

 

I had a chance to meet Ed and see his joysticks at our monthly AHCS meeting in Atlanta. Ed builds really high quality stuff- this is definitely not competition in the "cheap chinese junk" market.

 

It was much nicer than my X-Arcade at similar prices, so I can't wait to see a USB version. (Ed, sorry, was that a secret?)

The little one with the 4/8-way switcher stick and Sanwa would be awesome for MAME use. He will not be able to keep them in stock. :)

 

-Pete Rittwage

Edited by R.Cade
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Hi guys,

 

I had a chance to meet Ed and see his joysticks at our monthly AHCS meeting in Atlanta. Ed builds really high quality stuff- this is definitely not competition in the "cheap chinese junk" market.

 

It was much nicer than my X-Arcade at similar prices, so I can't wait to see a USB version. (Ed, sorry, was that a secret?)

The little one with the 4/8-way switcher stick and Sanwa would be awesome for MAME use. He will not be able to keep them in stock. :)

 

-Pete Rittwage

 

Thanks for your kind words, Pete, as well as the warm welcome from everyone at the AHCS meeting. Even though I never had an 8-bit computer it was great to see those old machines and hear the stories from the members. I also learned quite a bit from Raj (sp?) on repair of vintage Wico and other third party controllers.

 

I look forward to participating in future meetings!

 

Best rgds,

 

Ed

 

PS: It is definitely not a secret that we have been planning to offer an Edladdin USB arcade controller! Talking to folks at shows, meetings, and through these forums, that is by far the most requested new product. I am very hopeful/excited for the sample controller board that we ordered last week. If that thing delivers the features promised, we will be able to offer a USB controller within a very short period of time!

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Can you say what features you are hoping to include?

 

We've been taking a solid look at this now that the sample controller board has been delivered. In USB it looks like we can easily deliver:

 

"Super USB" - These will be in the 8"x14" aluminum case, same as the Super 78 and SuperTwin 78, with a single Sanwa microswitch joystick with octagonal restrictor plate and as many as six Happ pushbuttons.

"Supreme USB" - Identical to the the current "Supreme 78" - oak case and hinged pressed steel panel. Your choice of "All-Play 4/8" version with adjustable restrictor plate microswitch joystick OR "All Leaf" with leaf switch joystick.

The Supreme 78s have a pair of pushbuttons on either side of the stick. For the Supreme USB, I think we can squeeze a third button on each side.

 

There is one more possibility... For the upcoming "Super Arcade Controller" we are developing for the Colecovision, we have been getting quotes on a run of 12-key membrane keypads. These are all "matrix keypads", which follow the classic scheme of using signals from intersecting rows and columns to send 12 unique keystrokes (plus four joystick directions and four fire buttons) up a nine wire cord. If we can get them to also run some non-matrix keypads (where all 12 keys have their own signal wires), we will also be able to produce a "Super CV USB" - a controller like the "Super USB" as described above but with four fire buttons arranged in a fan in the style of Coleco's Super Action Controller.

 

Finally, the controller board will also support a spinner and/or a trackball, so we could probably entertain specific requests for those features on the "Super USB" if anyone really wants one of those.

---------

 

Photos show a Super 78, Supreme 78, and our prototype for the "Super Arcade Controller+", which is coming soon for the Colecovision. The four DB9 inputs on the front allow that unit to work with any 2600 or 7800 controller, any classic Colecovision controller, the Flashback Colecovision controller, or any of the Sega Genesis compatible controllers, and the unit has two outputs on the back - one for use with the classic Colecovision console and one for the Flashback Colecovision console. One photo shows the adapter-only version of the Coleco controller, which shows off the artwork for the membrane keypad. As usual, I can't figure out how to put these photos in any particular order...

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