Making a homemade 5200 controller.

[bluejay]

When I got my 5200 it was just the system and half a dozen games. No power supply, no switchbox, no controllers. Naturally, the first thing I did was buy a power supply and do a power mod. Both were simple and they worked. Then I had to make a controller. I stole a breadboard, a bunch of tact switches, and a lot of jumper wires from my Arduino kit, and made this:

Now that's a big mess o' wires. basically, the right 4 buttons are the top and bottom buttons, and I made it Super Nintendo style for my convenience. The long row of buttons is the number pad, but while I was wiring everything up I discovered I accidentally put in 11 switches instead of 12. So instead of taking it all apart and reassembling it, I bravely decided to abandon the "7" key. I figured it wouldn't hurt too much.

The leftmost switch is the "joystick". I tried using a potentiometer(worked only sometimes), a clicky thumbstick(didn't work at all), and a 2600 paddle(also didn't work). Eventually I just decided to use a switch, and when it's open the space ship, race car, Pac Man, whatever moves to the right. When it's closed it moves to the left. So it's kinda like using a Commodore cursor key except the left-right key is stuck. Due to the lack of cables I only wired up the bare minimum-the top button, bottom button, reset button, and the left-right button. In games like Space Invaders and Centipede it's usable. Pole Position is a little tougher. Pac Man and Dig Dug is impossible due to no up-down switch, and I haven't tried Realsports Baseball at all.

Anyways, what kind of potentiometers do the real 5200 controllers use? Should I just get a real one?

Edited October 4, 2020 by bluejay

[+DrVenkman]

Read this blog post:

 

http://www.smbaker.com/homemade-atari-5200-analog-controller

 

Then read @smbaker's post and the following thread here on AtariAge:

 

 

Last fall and winter, my buddy and I built and sold a LOT of these to dedicated hobbyists.

 

 

[bluejay]

@DrVenkman Thanks a lot!

Jeez, a 500k potentiometer? This gets more and more complicated as we speak! Ugh. Now microcontrollers are involved. Blech.

 

I've got an idea. It seems that if 0v is going through pin 10 it determines that the joystick is pushed all the way to the right, and if 5v is going through it it determines that the stick is pushed all the way to the left. What if I made two buttons, and if the one on the right is pushed it grounds pin 10, if the one on the left is pushed it feeds 5v to pin 10, and when nothing is pressed it feeds 2.5v into pin 10? Maybe I could accomplish that using 3 buttons. Left button=5v Middle button=2.5v, no wait, that wouldn't work. Is a microcontroller the only answer?

[john_q_atari]

That design used a microcontroller because it used a digital potentiometer. Probably what you want is to read the 5200 faq where they have a simple circuit for adapting an analog PC joystick to the 5200. Bohoki made those adapters for a while but you can easily find an analog PC joystick and make your own adapter. Just look at the 5200 FAQ. (It's a text document.)

[john_q_atari]

With the correct selection of fixed value resistors you could use 4 switches to get each of the 4 directions for playing many of the 5200 games if you really want to stick to your breadboard and existing switches. The faq will light your way.

[bluejay]

Thanks, I'll check it out. The thing is I don't have a 15 pin PC joystick...

I still don't understand why the 2600 paddles don't work. Paddles have 500k ohm pots, and when I tried to wire it up nothing worked; not even the buttons. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

[bluejay]

Ugh, using switches require ICs as well.

[bluejay]

Figured out why the paddles didn't work. I'm having a difficult time connecting jumper cables to the db9 connector; touching it directly with the pins on the pot works.

[+DrVenkman]

If you don't want to use 15-pin PC joysticks, there are a few different "Masterplay Clone" boards out there as well, including this one from Scott Baker as well. I have built a pair of them and use them with my TAC-2 or Genesis 3-button pads pretty often. They work great.

 

 

[Swami]

2 hours ago, john_q_atari said:

That design used a microcontroller because it used a digital potentiometer. Probably what you want is to read the 5200 faq where they have a simple circuit for adapting an analog PC joystick to the 5200. Bohoki made those adapters for a while but you can easily find an analog PC joystick and make your own adapter. Just look at the 5200 FAQ. (It's a text document.)

 

2 hours ago, bluejay said:

Thanks, I'll check it out. The thing is I don't have a 15 pin PC joystick...

I still don't understand why the 2600 paddles don't work. Paddles have 500k ohm pots, and when I tried to wire it up nothing worked; not even the buttons. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Ikonsgr sells the bohoki adapter and a basic masterplay clone.

[bohoki]

you do not need active components you only need them when you are converting to serial or are using a 2600 controller with a common ground

 

since you are using a breadboard with individual switches

 

you can replicate a digital to analog contition by using a 220-240k resistor  for the center of each vector

 

so one for uppy downy and one for lefty righty

 

with the uppy downy one you just use the up button to short the resistor so that button makes 0 ohm

now the trick is how to make a button press feel like 500k some just use a normally closed button that way when you break the contact it would be infinite resistance  but there is another dirty trick you could play on the system if you steal a leg from the button ground pin 11 it will feel like there is no charging going on and the system interprets this as infinite resistance

 

just repeat for lefty righty knowing that left is wants low ohms and right wants high ohms