Starting a game despite not having a controller

[Macross_VF1]

Here's a bit of an oddball technical question. I've recently managed to acquire a 5200 at a pretty good price that was listed as powering up but no signal. I thought it was worth looking into and I'm glad I did as it actually works, though the picture over RF is pretty poor so I will mod it with S-Video and/or composite. I like to future proof my consoles and computers so they at least can output composite. 

However, it also lacked controllers and while this is not much of a concern to me, this particular unit is mostly just going to sit in my collection, I do want to see at least one game going past the start/title screen. If this were a 2600 or similar machine I could easily just short the appropriate controller input pins to produce the necessary 'button' press but the 5200 is of course different in this regard. So basically, which input pins needs to be 'connected' to produce the start and indeed any button press? I'm not terribly familiar with the grid layout of the buttons on the 5200 but if I'm reading the schematic correctly I think the start button should be activated with pin 7 and 4?

Edited December 3, 2019 by Macross_VF1

[EpikalPuppy]

Pins 4 and 7 sound right to me.

Edited December 4, 2019 by EpikalPuppy

[DragonGrafx-16]

What's the point of having console and modding it if you aren't going to play it? 

[Macross_VF1]

6 hours ago, EpikalPuppy said:

Pins 4 and 7 sound right to me.

Thank you

 

 

6 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

What's the point of having console and modding it if you aren't going to play it? 

I can understand your point but you never know, I might do it in the future and also, I like to think ahead. I have a collection of around 190 computers and consoles (at the moment) and maintenance and repairs have become a necessary evil. Part of that includes ensuring that I (or possibly another, future owner) actually can use them in the future. Any unit that only feature RF out are particularly vulnerable since analog TVs and monitors are already somewhat scarce and will only become more so in the future. Other connection types have several good digitizing options available, I myself use both a Retrotink 2X and an OSSC, but RF out does not.