Missile Command 3D six button controller oddity

[eightbit]

So, I have never played this game until today. I am using an original Atari Pro Controller. I figured I would start with classic Missile Command and see how that was. After starting the game I immediately noticed that pushing down to move the fire cursor down is causing the play screen to shrink. Apparently Missile Command on this game has all of these neat features to make it look like it is playing inside of a Lynx, a TV, arcade machine. Pretty cool for the time. But it also seems the pro controller is working "weird" in this game to say the least. Went back to a three button stock controller and movement of the cursor is fine and all of the screen stretch. etc options are accessible by the game pad keys.

 

Anyone else experience this? I can understand the additional buttons (X, Y, Z) being mapped to those features and that is cool....but why is DPAD Down mapped to one of those features? It makes the game unplayable with a Pro Controller. Any fix?

[Zerosquare]

It's not supposed to do that. I think your controller is malfunctioning.

[7800JAGFAN]

After reading this I went to test this with my copy and pro controller and it works fine.   If you have the repro-pro controller sometimes they need a bit of internal adjustment, then they work great, theres a thread here somewhere on it.  Hope this helps.

 

[eightbit]

No, mine is an original pro controller...Atari branded. It works fine for up/down/left/right with every other game but does this strange thing with this game. Odd.

 

 

EDIT: Problem solved. I was using a Jaguar joystick extension cable from Best Electronics and it was causing this issue. I then tried a joystick extension cable I purchased from B&C Computervisions some time ago. SAME issue. These extension cables must not be wired up properly for the Pro Controller.

 

Funny thing is that down works properly in the menus but does this weird thing in the classic Missile Command game. If you have an extension cable give it a try and see if it does this for you.

Edited May 17, 2020 by eightbit

[Isgoed]

If you have Atari Karts, try play that one with an extension cable and original Pro Controller.

 

I have extension cables from Telegames, and with Atari Karts the left/right cursor buttons act as if you are pushing the 4 and 6 button (handbrake turn).

 

[eightbit]

How weird. I was under the assumption that the extension cables were pin for pin straight pass through. Apparently that may not be the case.

[+Stephen Moss]

22 hours ago, Isgoed said:

I have extension cables from Telegames, and with Atari Karts the left/right cursor buttons act as if you are pushing the 4 and 6 button (handbrake turn).

If by cursor buttons you mean the shoulder buttons on front corners then that is what should happen as they are wired in parallel with keypad buttons 4 & 6. However, if you are referring to L and R on the Joypad that is definitely wrong.  

12 hours ago, eightbit said:

How weird. I was under the assumption that the extension cables were pin for pin straight pass through

They should be, if they were not they would be useless as I cannot see how any controller would operate correctly with them otherwise, not just the Pro controller. The problem is that not many games make use the Keypad and so the problem could generally go unnoticed.

 

What could be happening is that there is a short in the cable or the signal is being capacitively coupled but then I would expect more than just the Down & 7 button to be effected because...

If it was a J0 to J1 short I would expected pressing either of these pairs of buttons to give the same result as pressing just one of them Up & *, Down & 7, A & B , Right & 1, Left & 4...

alternatively if the issue was with with the J9 column I would expect the pressing either D, 7, 8 or 9 to be the same as pressing all of them.

Consequently, if it is only Down & 7 that is affected that is a weird one. 

[Isgoed]

Yes, I am referring to the L and R on the joypad.

[Zerosquare]

To reduce the number of wires in the cable, the Jaguar pad has 4 groups of buttons, which are read one at a time like this :

1) one group of buttons is selected

2) there's a small delay to allow the controller to react to the selection

3) the states of the buttons are read

 

Since this is handled by the game, there's a possibility that the delay in step 2 for Missile Command is too short, and causes problems when the cable is too long. That would explain why the problem only occurs with that game, and only when using an extension cable.