Re: [stella] Driving controller multitap

[Glenn Saunders <mos6507@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 05:01 AM 2/25/2004, you wrote:
> But you're still suggesting a hardware hack to plug 'em all in, right?

Do you know of some other way to connect 4 driving controllers to 2 
controller ports?

You know we purchase homebrew games, costs people money to buy them.  It's 
"extra hardware".  People buy 3rd party controllers or replacement 
controllers.  Controllers don't necessarily last forever.  There is no law 
that says you can't use hardware that didn't come with a stock 2600, or 
write games that require 3rd party hardware.  In fact, it helps if the 
emulators can't yet handle wacky controller schemes because people are 
going to have to buy the real thing that way.  I don't see anything taboo 
about making Y-cable type things for the 2600.  The 2600 is over 25 years 
old.  Maybe it takes a little extra (hopefully inexpensive) hardware now 
and then to do something novel with it to open up some new game 
ideas.  It's just that to really do them right someone should make them 
configurable so you don't need a separate Y-cable for every possible 
application.  That's where the footcontroller on AtariAge is useful because 
it has a degree of programmability to it, enough that it should work for 
Death Derby or other games that would share the driving controller and 
joystick signals.

I'd love to see Chad Schell come up with something like that.  It might 
need a very simple PGA and/or microcontroller in the middle to handle the 
routing options.

If done right such a thing could be used to interface Atari controllers to 
the Vectrex or any other system that uses DB9s (C=64, Atari 8-bit, Amiga, 
Genesis, Astrocade, etc...).

When you think about the versatility of such a thing it doesn't seem like 
such an extravagant item if it could be sold for less than $20 a piece.

I like the simplicity of the 2600's controllers and wouldn't want something 
as elaborate as a PSX controller for the 2600.  But only having one button 
available can be a limitation.  Even Atari recognized that when they added 
the 2nd fire button to the 7800.  The 2600 supports more signals than any 
of its standard controllers generate by themselves.  So that's untapped 
potential to me.



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