Anybody own the C64 Mini? Impressions?

[+fdr4prez]

7 minutes ago, pimpmaul69 said:

What is up my friend? Nice to see you wander on over here. 

This is a topic I've been following for quite a long time.

 

If I ever get one of these, then I'd like to know what I can do with it.

 

For the very briefest of time I did have a C64 back around 1990 or '91.  It was so brief a time that I don't even remember what I did with it while I had it, or where it disappeared to.

[pimpmaul69]

3 hours ago, fdr4prez said:

This is a topic I've been following for quite a long time.

 

If I ever get one of these, then I'd like to know what I can do with it.

 

For the very briefest of time I did have a C64 back around 1990 or '91.  It was so brief a time that I don't even remember what I did with it while I had it, or where it disappeared to.

Well if you do get one and want any help just give me a call. Or text. Or pm. Or carrier pigeon. Or however else you feel like contacting me. ?

Edited July 7, 2019 by pimpmaul69

[pimpmaul69]

On 6/26/2019 at 2:55 PM, Shannon said:

@pimpmaul69  I tried some other controllers I had laying around ( PS4, PS2 with adapter for PS3 ) and it recognized them but the button selection was nonsensical.  Is there a recommended gamepad for this thing that does not have weird button assignments?  Or at the very least can I modify the existing ones for my controllers to actually make sense?  Thanks

 

So in a .tsg file and a .cjm, here is the button layout. this is different than the layout for the original joystick in the manual. i will get on my computer and post a link to the cjm configuration tool. 

 

J1 (*) / 2 (*): JU, JD, JL, JR, LEFT trigger, RIGHT trigger, Y, X, Left bumper, A, B, SELECT, Right bumper

 

 

Edited July 7, 2019 by pimpmaul69

[pimpmaul69]

https://www.thec64minizone.com/cjm-configuration-file-tool/

 

[pimpmaul69]

On 7/6/2019 at 6:44 PM, fdr4prez said:

This is a topic I've been following for quite a long time.

 

If I ever get one of these, then I'd like to know what I can do with it.

 

For the very briefest of time I did have a C64 back around 1990 or '91.  It was so brief a time that I don't even remember what I did with it while I had it, or where it disappeared to.

Now the these are only $29.99 you should really consider getting one. It was what finally sold me. And i have no regrets. 

[Shannon]

13 hours ago, pimpmaul69 said:

o in a .tsg file and a .cjm, here is the button layout. this is different than the layout for the original joystick in the manual. i will get on my computer and post a link to the cjm configuration tool. 

 

J1 (*) / 2 (*): JU, JD, JL, JR, LEFT trigger, RIGHT trigger, Y, X, Left bumper, A, B, SELECT, Right bumper

 

Thanks for this.  I was hoping over the weekend to tinker around with getting some of my "better" sticks to work with the C64 mini.  I had a few good ideas for doing it.  But other things got in the way.  Hopefully in the next day or so I can try my experiment.

 

[pimpmaul69]

49 minutes ago, Shannon said:

 

Thanks for this.  I was hoping over the weekend to tinker around with getting some of my "better" sticks to work with the C64 mini.  I had a few good ideas for doing it.  But other things got in the way.  Hopefully in the next day or so I can try my experiment.

 

Not sure about the ps4 controller but the ps3 controller has a lot of issues and not worth using. 

[+wongojack]

2 hours ago, pimpmaul69 said:

Not sure about the ps4 controller but the ps3 controller has a lot of issues and not worth using. 

What controllers are worth using?  I have made no attempt to update the device besides installing the newest firmware, and I tried a bunch of different controllers this weekend (PS3, PS4, Xbox, PS2 with adapter).  None of them did anything.

[pimpmaul69]

15 minutes ago, wongojack said:

What controllers are worth using?  I have made no attempt to update the device besides installing the newest firmware, and I tried a bunch of different controllers this weekend (PS3, PS4, Xbox, PS2 with adapter).  None of them did anything.

Are your controllers official ones? Bootlegs and aftermarkets arent in the gamecontrollerdb.txt. Controller have to be plugged in. I tested with both a ps2 adapter and ps3 controllers. Both are detected fine. Ps2 controller with adapter works good as long as you dont press the analog button. What ps2 adapter are you using?

[Loafer]

I'm using USB keypads that look like SNES controllers, work perfectly (default for fire button is right trigger but that can be changed for the USB loaded games via that CJM tool)

[+wongojack]

7 hours ago, pimpmaul69 said:

Are your controllers official ones? Bootlegs and aftermarkets arent in the gamecontrollerdb.txt. Controller have to be plugged in. I tested with both a ps2 adapter and ps3 controllers. Both are detected fine. Ps2 controller with adapter works good as long as you dont press the analog button. What ps2 adapter are you using?

Every controller I tried was official.  I have 2 different no-name adapters that adapt to Xbox, Gamecube, and USB.  One of them works with the analog button always on and the other lets me turn it off and on.  It didn't matter which I used or if the analog light was on or off.  They did nothing.

 

The other controllers all did nothing.  I could swap the competition pro that it came with in and out with no problem even without turning off the device.

[pimpmaul69]

28 minutes ago, wongojack said:

Every controller I tried was official.  I have 2 different no-name adapters that adapt to Xbox, Gamecube, and USB.  One of them works with the analog button always on and the other lets me turn it off and on.  It didn't matter which I used or if the analog light was on or off.  They did nothing.

 

The other controllers all did nothing.  I could swap the competition pro that it came with in and out with no problem even without turning off the device.

You never have to turn it off to swap controllers. Except for ps3 controllers cause those are completely whack on thec64 mini. 

[pimpmaul69]

32 minutes ago, wongojack said:

Every controller I tried was official.  I have 2 different no-name adapters that adapt to Xbox, Gamecube, and USB.  One of them works with the analog button always on and the other lets me turn it off and on.  It didn't matter which I used or if the analog light was on or off.  They did nothing.

 

The other controllers all did nothing.  I could swap the competition pro that it came with in and out with no problem even without turning off the device.

You need the ps2 controller to usb only adapters. Without a guid setup for the adapter you have it will never work on the mini. 

Edited July 9, 2019 by pimpmaul69

[+fdr4prez]

43 minutes ago, pimpmaul69 said:

Without a guid setup for the adapter you have it will never work on the mini.

 

You certainly are making it unnecessarily difficult 

[pimpmaul69]

17 minutes ago, fdr4prez said:

 

You certainly are making it unnecessarily difficult 

The mini uses an sdl gamecontrollerdb.txt to decide what controllers work or not. They dont just work. Just the usb hid means nothing on the mini. It was a pain to find everything i needed to make a raspberry pi able to give me the linux guid # of the controllers. You need that and the controller id plus all the controls added to the gamecontrollerdbtxt, which you have to go through all the hack crap to be able to access and modify that file. 

Edited July 9, 2019 by pimpmaul69

[pimpmaul69]

Cant edit last post. Its an sdl2 gamecontrollerdb.txt. I posted in the c64 full size thread on how to install the stuff to be able to get the linux guid and id. 

Edited July 9, 2019 by pimpmaul69

[pimpmaul69]

5 hours ago, wongojack said:

Every controller I tried was official.  I have 2 different no-name adapters that adapt to Xbox, Gamecube, and USB.  One of them works with the analog button always on and the other lets me turn it off and on.  It didn't matter which I used or if the analog light was on or off.  They did nothing.

 

The other controllers all did nothing.  I could swap the competition pro that it came with in and out with no problem even without turning off the device.

Look in the full size c64 thread. I posted on what to install in linux so you could get the guid and id. Then you could add your ps2 adapter to the gamecontrollerdb.txt. 

[Shannon]

 

[+wongojack]

12 hours ago, pimpmaul69 said:

Look in the full size c64 thread. I posted on what to install in linux so you could get the guid and id. Then you could add your ps2 adapter to the gamecontrollerdb.txt. 

Thank you, I appreciate the work you put into that, but even to pick it up from where you left off is not worth it to me.  If I want to use a different controller, I'll just use Vice in Windows.

[+OLD CS1]

I expect the full size unit will have some sales difficulty at first after people watched the Mini go from $70 to $30 in such a short time.

[digdugnate]

i'm interested to see where the price point is for the full-size once it's brought to the US 'officially'.  right now im good with the Mini, but who knows when i'll get the wild hare to get another box. lol

[pimpmaul69]

3 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

I expect the full size unit will have some sales difficulty at first after people watched the Mini go from $70 to $30 in such a short time.

Im not sure what happened to my reply to this. The price drop most likely has to do with not only getting rid of old stock but making some more money to make the c64 full size. Sales wont be hard. In Europe/uk and australia pre orders are flying off the shelves. I follow several facebook groups for the mini and full size and there is no shortage of buyers. It has an option to choose 50khz and 60khz so they are universal. I will buy one here in the us as soon as possible. 

[Sinphaltimus]

I repaired my Joystick and mulling all this over I came across this....

 

 

 

$35 for the Keyrah and I have a c64 case with keyboard. Going to give this a try once it arrives.

[pimpmaul69]

3 hours ago, Sinphaltimus said:

I repaired my Joystick and mulling all this over I came across this....

 

 

 

$35 for the Keyrah and I have a c64 case with keyboard. Going to give this a try once it arrives.

In the settings on the mini you need to set the keyboard to uk for it to be mapped properly. 

[retrorandy]

I bought mine about a month ago for $30 from the local Gamestop. 

I was impressed by the look of the device and I REALLY like how easy it is to use.
I've tried to use Vice on a hacked Wii and it always seemed like a pain to load the file, change joystick ports & play properly. 

I agree with others that the joystick isn't all that precise. Makes me long for the old Atari joystick to play games. 

I do have an old USB Gravis gamepad PRO I've plugged in that is working rather nicely. The joystick port thing is a bit annoying & I'd always run into that with Vice on the Wii too. Sounds like the easiest solution is plugging in two joysticks. I will have to buy a USB port expander. 

Overall I am a happy camper & I find myself playing it quite a bit. Some of these games were super hard & having an easy way to do save states is beyond AWESOME! Nice to see such a thorough discussion about this product on this forum.