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CX40 Bluetooth Adapter


cwanized

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Dear community,

 

first of all, happy new year to everyone. I hope you already started well into the new year.

 

 

Recently, I was looking for some "easy" Bluetooth / Atari CX40 Joystick adapters and found @tschak909's post. As it seems, currently there are no such solutions available. (I hope this is still applicable?)

 

So, I've been thinking about it for the past few days and decided to sketch a very high-level concept what could be done. I would like to avoid any design faults (and even maybe someone would like to participate somehow), so it’s publicly available on GitHub:
 

https://github.com/cwanized/CX2BTLE/wiki/Introduction

(please keep in mind, this is a first draft about some ideas. Spelling etc. not checked yet?)


I am not experienced just yet with the ESP32 (in my former company I used to use Microchip PIC/NEC Microcontroller), but what I have seen so far, it should be pretty straight forward. (Astonishing what they have integrated in such a small chip).

 

Furthermore, it would be nice if it is possible to support additional devices and different peripherals (e.g., Sega Controllers etc). Currently I am not sure if this is doable, but if I am going to design a PCB, I should keep these devices /peripherals in mind.

 

Any thoughts? Great idea or just a waste of time?

 

Best regards

Chris


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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18 minutes ago, vitoco said:

There is a related project that looks like a CX40 controller but it is a bluetooth sensor that works with PS3, PS4 and Wii controllers:

 

[video]

 

More examples in the same YouTube channel, and more comments in Retrogames.cl forum (in Spanish).

 

Interesting! Thanks for posting. I'll check that out.

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There were a couple of wireless solutions that wandered the web, not Atari specific but the Atari 9 pin joy/i/o port became the standard and most solutions out there are adaptable to our machines as a result.

Please consider a nice consequence of the new VCS and what it brings is that it's classic stick with twister is that a blue tooth solution for the 8 bit can now have a sweet classic looking stick with many of the A8 controller types already in it. The twister isn't exactly a spinner but is workable none the less, two fire button, standard stick, and the enhanced stick return and hamburger/ menu button (Atari button as well) so 5 buttons give or take, 2 directional method and a twister.... haven't seen the center stick click do anything yet on the classic. Then you can move on the the Modern style Atari stick as well (or any Bluetooth device mapped as now  or even new types, it would even be possible to us a Bluetooth dongle for I/O just like any modem, display box, printer, reader, tablet, or hard disk of the past to the port... The opportunities are quite large. Whatever the Bluetooth device selected for the project, it needs to be polling fast enough to avoid lag though... after all games demand hair trigger response times.

Edited by _The Doctor__
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43 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

There were a couple of wireless solutions that wandered the web, not Atari specific but the Atari 9 pin joy/i/o port became the standard and most solutions out there are adaptable to our machines as a result.

Please consider a nice consequence of the new VCS and what it brings is that it's classic stick with twister is that a blue tooth solution for the 8 bit can now have a sweet classic looking stick with many of the A8 controller types already in it. The twister isn't exactly a spinner but is workable none the less, two fire button, standard stick, and the enhanced stick return and hamburger/ menu button (Atari button as well) so 5 buttons give or take, 2 directional method and a twister.... haven't seen the center stick click do anything yet on the classic. Then you can move on the the Modern style Atari stick as well (or any Bluetooth device mapped as now  or even new types, it would even be possible to us a Bluetooth dongle for I/O just like and modem, display box, printer, reader, tablet, or hard disk of the past to the port... The opportunities are quite large. Whatever the Bluetooth device selected for the project, it needs to be polling fast enough to avoid lag though... after all games demand hair trigger response times.

The Doctor itself is answering to my thread...wow ?

Cool idea. The new VCS joystick didn't came up in mind...but this is actually exactly what I'm thinking in a 2nd or 3rd iteration of the "CX2BTLE"-Adapter. My approach was to upgrade some of the CX40 replicas with the integrated ESP32 BT-Module (in my figueres the _B-Board) - But using a "off-the-shelve-BT-stick" is even better.

Regarding polling: If I understand Bluetooth-LowEnergy correctly, there is no need for polling all the time. The "sensor"-device (BTLE Clients) actively sends data to the receving end (BTLE Server) if there are any data to transmitt (in our case, e.g. button is pressed)

 

Quote

"it would even be possible to us a Bluetooth dongle for I/O just like and modem, display box, printer, reader, tablet, or hard disk of the past to the port..."

I had a similiar idea regarding tablets / phones. Something like a "Touch-screen input"... but I think this will be a rare requirement. But if the _A-Module is working fine, there is no reason why this shouldn't be possible.

Not sure about a valid use case for connecting modem, printer etc to the joystick port... or did I missunderstood something?

 

Best regards

Edited by cwanized
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The bridge between the port and the bt needs to update quickly (polling both the port and the transceiver so to speak). I've got a few bt audio dongles that are slow to connect and lag, was it due to the module itself or the support board that handles it and the audio 'WHO' knows... but different transceivers did help on a couple, not so much on others.

The Joy/IO ports are bi directional and have been used for all the things I mentioned and more so I felt there was no reason a modem or (lantronix), printer, files being pushed or anything else couldn't be implemented via bluetooth as well.

Touch tablet should be doable as well since that a supported device, mapping a phone based touch screen like that sounds very reasonable(4 or so touch tablets and their drivers to choose from), someone might even find a way to use the pen input of the port to fool the Atari into something.

 

Edited by _The Doctor__
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6 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

The bridge between the port and the bt needs to update quickly (polling both the port and the transceiver so to speak). I've got a few bt audio dongles that are slow to connect and lag, was it due to the module itself or the support board that handles it and the audio 'WHO' knows... but different transceivers did help on a couple, not so much on others.

The Joy/IO ports are bi directional and have been used for all the things I mentioned and more so I felt there was no reason a modem, (lantronix), printer, files being pushed or anything else couldn't be implemented via bluetooth as well.

Touch tablet should be doable as well since that a supported device, mapping phone touch screen like that sounds very reasonable, someone might even find a way to use the pen input of the port to fool the Atari into something.

 

Ah right, got it. I noticed the other day on Wikipedia that the Joystick port can somehow used for output as well, but I didn't have that in my mind anymore. Thanks for clarification.

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