Spaceball Avenger 6-axis 3D analogue controller

[sirlynxalot]

If you are like me and periodically searched for atari jaguar prototype stuff on google in the last 15 years, you might have seen an image of this controller:

 

According to the website for this picture (http://spacemice.org/index.php?title=Mystery), the images come from an old ebay auction where the seller claimed it was found at Atari HQ during the time atari was going out of business and stuff was being liquidated.

 

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This controller was found in a box in the Atari HQ when the company closed its doors. It was at one time in the Atari Museum, I eventually purchased it from owner of the Jaguar Sector. It is a very unique and one of a kind Atari Jaguar controller.

 

The controller has one button on the bottom, two buttons on the front, one of the overlays has been taped on to prevent it from becoming lost. There are two buttons on the top. The controller has never been tested and I have no idea what it was to be used for. I do not know if the ball spins, it does not seem like it.

 

 

Years later, this controller was the topic of conversation on another forum, and one of the developers chimed in on the discussion to offer some details

 

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Wow. I guess we left something behind. {at Atari}


This looks like a rapid prototype model that we made a few of for testing the feel and button layout. This was made of a very heavy plastic resin type material (probably from a rubber mold). We may have hollowed out some of them and put a circuitboard in. It would go on to become the Spaceball Avenger.

 

 

Several years later, in 2017, one of the developers of the controller chimed in on the discussion again to add more interesting information:
 

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That was not only meant to be connected to a Jaguar, but was. In fact, when OJ was on his slow speed chase in LA,

we were at Atari in Sunnyvale/Santa Clara/wherever it was, incorporating support for that device (maybe that very device) into the Jaguar libraries and some games. It was a pretty sad place--no one to be found. We had the run of the place, such as it was. Of course, nothing ever got released. But if you plug it into a Jaguar, it might do something, but probably nothing useful w/o a game that supports it.

 

 

The company went on to release a couple variations of this controller on the PC, and license the 3d ball orb thingy to agetec/ascii to put on a PS1 controller.  But I find the first commercial iteration of the controller, released for PC, the most interesting, because the darn thing looks like a cross between that prototype and the traditional Atari Jaguar controller!  Sega Saturn 3d pad eat your heart out!

 

 

So, considering that this wasn't just a device that was being shown to Atari, but was actually a device for which the developers were at Atari HQ implementing software support/drivers into development libraries and games... could this be like the Missile Command VR headset, where if you're able to get one and connect it to the Jag, there might actually be some hidden support for it?  Anyone have the ability to test this out?  Looks like the PC spaceball avenger uses a 9 pin serial port.

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by sirlynxalot

[doctorclu]

That is amazing.   Honestly have no idea how it would work.

[sirlynxalot]

Judging from reviews and youtube videos, in practice, its basically ideal for a game like Descent, where the controls allow you to move your ship in more than four directions, such as by hovering up and down like a helicopter.  I forget if Cybermorph/Battlemorph/Skyhammer allows you to do similar up/down hovering... but it seems like it could have been an interesting controller for those games.   The pc controller was also apparently supported by FPS games of the mid 90s like Quake, where you could use it to not only run and turn, but also smoothly look up and down, all by just twisting, turning, pushing and pulling on the ball.  You could also use it for games that had fewer movement/looking options, like Doom, and just not use the full 6-axis functionality because the particular game doesn't need or use 6 axis of movement.

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by sirlynxalot

[sirlynxalot]

Here's one of the forum threads where a developer chimed in back in 2012. https://forum.3dconnexion.com/viewtopic.php?t=1338&start=135

Looks like I didn't have the full quote before:

 

Wow. I guess we left something behind. We were in fact in the Atari buildings working on the Jaguar SDK (on the very day of OJ's slow speed chase -- I flew between LAX/John Wayne and SJC that day). It was the final days of Atari. The place was deserted. No one was around except Aaron O and me. We had the run of the place. We neglected to realize that Aaron was under 25 and couldn't rent a car -- LOL. I forget where he stayed, or how he ate.

This looks like a rapid prototype model that we made a few of for testing the feel and button layout. This was made of a very heavy plastic resin type material (probably from a rubber mold). We may have hollowed out some of them and put a ciruitboard in. It would go on to become the Spaceball Avenger.

It's maybe worth $10, but I wouldn't even pay that. Makes a nice boat anchor.

[PeterG]

Nice info, I remember seeing the grey pad in pictures. How does this stuff pop up after years and years and then it even got released. Hehe, thanks for sharing.

[MAYAman]

Having used a space orb and now a space mouse this would be wonderful if implemented for several games on Jaguar. Another depressing footnote. 

[sirlynxalot]

So I was digging around in the forums here about a mysterious jaguar flightstick that someone made around the turn of the millennium and found some information about analogue joysticks on the atari jaguar. Basically, Battlesphere may be the only game known to support an analogue joystick, older jaguar revisions contained internal hardware that supports an analogue joystick, and later revisions had this hardware removed for cost cutting. Since the Space Orb is essentially an analogue joystick, I imagine whatever functionality might have been built into the jag for the controller is only viable with the jag revisions that have the hardware to support analogue joysticks.

 

I'm going to stick a couple quotes from old forum topics here just to gather the info in one place:
 

Lots of pictures and schematics from Matthias Domain regarding jaguar analogue input, and adding support for it on non-analogue capable jaguar's

http://www.mdgames.de/janalog.html

 

I was reading here on AA where someone asked how to tell if you have a analogue capable Jag, and Matthias replied it's not as easy as K or M series separation. He said you actually have to open your Jaguar and check for the analogue chip that they later removed to cut costs. There are pictures on mdgames.de of the board area and parts needed, mostly just a chip and capacitor which is located right behind the port 1 controller. The chip for analogue movement is between two long red capacitor type components behind port 1. So, I was going to open up my K series Jag and make sure this chip is there before I try to use my VD3D flight stick with the analogue BattleSphere code. I have a Jaguar I bought on ebay, that had a little water damage to the mainboard and it would not work with any games, no power.

 

Im going to dig up what I can find on the Jaguar controller protocols. Im just rather quite positive VR followed

one of those. I remember you could hook up Space Balls and Flight Sticks and all sorts of what have you and

there was a protocol to read them. You can interface anything with anything electronically for the most part.

 

The Flight Sticks were not created by Team 13 / the GOAT Store. They were created by VD3D (Visual Designs 3D) and were going to be limited to a run of 100 sticks. The fact that only certain Jaguars had the chip in them that allowed them to read analog meant that of the first 5-10 that were produced, Dark Knight Games (who was selling them) got most of them back as "defective." As the story goes, DKG sent the defective sticks back to VD3D, who tried them and found no problems on their Jags-with-the-chips. Thus officially ended the life of the flight sticks. I assume those other sticks were sold, but I would be floored if more than 20 of them exist.

 

I also, at one time was building an analog controller, using a standard Jaguar controller and removing the control pad and install an analog thumbstick in it's place (which requires cutting the digital pad part of the board off and then wiring in the analog thumbstick), But before I had completely finished it (90% done) I had to sell off my Battlesphere cart to pay rent when I was out of work last year. So I still have the controller, but can't finish until I can afford to buy battlespehre again someday. But I do have some pointers from my experience to forewarn CRASH: Battlesphere was desighned to use the analog controller in port 2, and it DOES NOT support the needed keypad, a controller has to be plugged into port 1 to access all controls. My plan, the part I never got too, was to design a splitter cable for the controller so that I could plug it into BOTH controller ports to gain full access to all the controls. Otherwise you will have to use the analog controller and a regualr controller to play the game, which was the original intension of the developers, but I find it cumbersome, which is why I want to create the splitter cable. Just FYI Crash.

 

 

[DarthCloud]

I actually implemented the 6D controller protocol (which is digital, do not use the 2 analog pins) (as defined by Atari in the jaguar technical reference) on my Bluetooth adapter project and made a jaguar ROM to test it.

 

I dont use the axes as Atari intended however, its mapped like modern controller with dual joystick and dual trigger.

 

Would love to some homebrew or rom hack implement the protocol!

 

 

[sirlynxalot]

4 minutes ago, DarthCloud said:

I actually implemented the 6D controller protocol (which is digital, do not use the 2 analog pins) (as defined by Atari in the jaguar technical reference) on my Bluetooth adapter project and made a jaguar ROM to test it.

 

 

Is there some place I can check out the jag technical reference to the 6D controller protocol? 

 

Really cool that you have made something to simulate the signals! Did you have the chance to test it out with every jag 3d vehicle game to see if there might be any undocumented support?  I know its a longshot, but at the same time, the quote from the developer of the spaceball suggested they spent some time at Atari HQ adding support for (presumably the 6D controller) into some jag games!

 

 

Quote from developer of spaceball/spaceorb joystick:  "we were at Atari in Sunnyvale/Santa Clara/wherever it was, incorporating support for that device (maybe that very device) into the Jaguar libraries and some games."

 

[DarthCloud]

I uploaded it on my wiki first link on the page:

https://github.com/darthcloud/BlueRetro/wiki/Jaguar-interface

 

I wanted to test all game with it but didn't had the time yet (In middle of moving house right now).

 

 

[sirlynxalot]

Very interesting, thanks for the information.  Please update us with your findings when you get a chance to test out various games for any secret 6D controller support