What's Wrong With This Picture?

[Lynxpro]

This. I still haven't finished my "ultimate" 16-bit arcade joystick. Has three PCBs (clone Genny, clone SNES, and a Cthulhu) and supports 2600-SMS-Genesis, NES-SNES, Turbo16, and Mame-USB. It's already got a rats nest inside and I'm not even close to done yet...

 

A Cthulhu? Dare I ask?

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

A Cthulhu? Dare I ask?

Not as threatening as the name suggests. One guy did a nice video tutorial:

 

I'm using the Cthulhu for the PCe/Turbo and USB/MAME. My controller will have a wire harness with a 25-pin parallel header with four extension cables, a 9-pin for Atari/Sega, NES and SNES cables which share the same 5 pins, and an 8-pin DIN for Turbografx. That will leave 3 pins unused on the 25-pin Dsub. USB plugs in the side. NES/SNES uses a clone SNES PCB; Atari/SMS/Genesis/ uses a clone Genesis PCB; and Cthulhu for Turbo/USB.

 

Cthulhu actually supports SNES but I want to customize the button layout and there's no way that I know of to do this in software on the Cthulhu. The fighting/Street Fighter 6-button layout is very awkward for platformers that utilize Y-B-A buttons so I'm using some triple-ganged DPDT switchs to the SNES clone PCB to switch button mapping on the fly. Position of said switch will not affect other systems besides NES/SNES. Genesis is obviously not supported since the console requires 9 pins and Cthulhu only has 8 connections.

[BigO]

I was sure that I could do the mod on the CX-53 as a kit. I built a prototype harness over the course of the past couple of days. I can confirm that it's possible to be able to do this mod without making any permanent changes to the Trak-Ball.

 

But, it is a tedious process. I used a parallel printer cable to bring the signals out of the controller to an accesible connector. Most of the time was probably spent mapping out and managing the wires. On top of that, they are tiny wires which requires some extra steps to get them to work with the crimp contacts on the Molex connector.

 

I think I could terminate 25 conductor cable on DB connectors faster. But, 25 conductor cable is pretty spendy. More than I'm willing to lay out for this project with no guaranteed or even highly likely return.

 

A supply of 25 pin straight through serial cables would make it much less tedious. The IEEE 1284 printer cables have a bunch of extra wires and they're tiny wires to boot. That tiny gauge and insulation makes it a pain to work with. Those cables are out there, but almost all are ugly office beige. Not sure people would have much interest in that.

 

As it stands, I might repair and mod the few Trak-Balls I have and sell them. Maybe with the mod, but I'm not thinking I'll produce the harness for sale.

 

There are a couple of places here in town that could undoubtedly make short work of the bulk of the harness. I may waste a little of their time to see what the price would be. Unless interest is much, much higher than I imagine, I don't think that would be workable. The chip socket "taps" are a custom job that I'd still have to do unless somebody knows of some commercially produced prototyping part or something that I can't find.

 

I still don't have a strain relief method that I'm satisfied with.

 

If a supply of ideal, new parts surfaced, I might be able to do this job economically but as it stands, I wouldn't make one of these for $100.

 

Though, after making the one, with one set of adapters, I would commit to making another for $1000. For that price, I might throw in an adapter ("personality module"?) that does 2600 joystick emulation just to make more games playable.