Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Non TI-99 game controllers on TI-99 part II

After my "experiments" yesterday, I would like to make two adapters. One adapter would allow an
Atari CX-30 and Sega Genesis. The second Adapter would be fore the Atari Video Touch Pad. It is possible, only one would need to be made for all three of these.
TI-99 41 Joystick port
     ___________
    ( 1 2 3 4 5 )
     \ 6 7 8 9 /
# Use \_______/
- -------
1 not used
2 joystick 2 ground / common
3 Up
4 Fire button pressed
5 Left
6 not used
7 joystick 1 ground / common
8 Down
9 Right


Atari 2600 CX-30 Joystick port
     ___________
    ( 1 2 3 4 5 )
     \ 6 7 8 9 /
# Use \_______/
- -------
1 Up
2 Down
3 Left
4 Right
5 Paddle B
6 Trigger
7 +5 volts
8 ground / common
9 Paddle A


Sega Genesis Joystick port
     ___________
    ( 1 2 3 4 5 )
     \ 6 7 8 9 /
# Use \_______/
- -------
1 Up
2 Down
3 Left
4 Right
5 +5 volts
6 Button C / Trigger
7 ground / common
8 Select Button
9 Button B and A

TI-99 has one joystick port and the Atari 2600 has two joystick ports.

With the Atari 2600, on either controller, if  pin 8 to pin 4 is a closed circuit, the joystick is pushed Right.

With TI-99/4A if joystick #1 has a closed circuit with pin 7 to pin 9, the joystick #1 is pushed Right.

So from our experiments yesterday, it makes sense that only down worked for the CX-30 and genesis as this is the only mapping that is the same (except reversed) and had a closed circuit. 

So with this information, I should be able to make an adapter that would allow me to use two Atari CX-30 Joysticks or genesis controllers to the one TI-99/4A port.  But the easier (first option) would make 1 joy to 1 port for testing the concept.

Thinking though this, it looks like I would need to create a separate adapter for the touch pad.  By the mapping above, Button five would have done pin 2 and pin 5 for button 3 and pin 2 and pin 9 for button 4.  So I'm going to concentrate first on making a 1:1 CX-30 to TI-99 joystick port adapter.


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