C64 Advantage

Any retro gamer understands the importance of one thing - The Joystick. U/D/L/R & Fire, what more could one ask for?? Well, I needed one for my C64. My first plan was to rip apart an old SNES controller (My SNES, mind you, is probably my most beloved old system, so this would be painful for me..), and use the d-pad and one of the buttons. So, I looked through my game controller cabinet, and found something even better...

Anyone ever heard of something called the NES Advantage? It's basically a beefed-up NES controller, with a joystick(!!) to replace the d-pad and some features like turbo and slow button mashing. Well, it just so happens I had one laying around :) .

Image from http://sinfoniafantastica.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/la-evolucion-de-los-controles/ . I also have an SNES equivalent...but that's beside the point :) .

Now, like all of my systems, I love my NES dearly, so I didn't want to open this thing and just ruin it...besides, wouldn't it be cooler if I added a DB9 port, making it compatible with both systems? Yeah, I thought so too :) .

It just so happens that the pinout and functionality of the C64 joystick port is SUPER simple. Simply ground any of the 5 input pins (up, down, left, right, and fire), and the button's pressed. This is perfect for any controller to be modded :) . The pinout on the left (DB9) shows the pinout for this port:

http://zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/documents/projects/interfaces/plus4joy/plus4joy.html ; Thanks Zimmers :) .

And so it began. First, I had to open the controller, which actually took more work than I had expected...turns out they used to put screws under the feet for these things :P . Blast.

The layout of the two boards in here were pretty simple (at least for my purposes). I really didn't care much about the extra features of the controller; I just wanted the joystick to work and use the A-button for Fire. This way, I really just had to solder the right wires - one for ground, and five for the inputs. For the connection wires, I just spliced an old Ethernet cable, then just crimped the DB9 connector pins to one end and popped them into the connector:

With that end of the cable taken care of, I remembered I'd need to cut out part of the case to mount the connector. I had my friend Stephen help me with that (as I'd never used a dremel before)...Honestly, he just did it for me :P . Turned out a bit sketchy, but hey - it was his first day with the tool, so I'd say that's pretty good :) .

Then came the soldering. Turns out, the U/D/L/R controls were all labelled on the PCB, which made that part rediculously simple; the Fire connections were found by sight and confirmed with a multimeter. Once soldered, the rest was just reassembling everything:

So, very easy :) . Here's what it looked like just before I tested it (the new port is on the left; the black cables on the right are the original NES inputs):

...and here's what it looked like as it worked first try :D !!

Don't you just love the sweet smell of soldering success :) ? By the way, you can't really tell because of my crappy phone camera...but the game I'm playing there is called Delta :) . You can find details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_(video_game) . If you like retro games, especially side-shooters and space games, check this one out; it's definitely one of my favorite arcade-style games ever. Well, I suppose that's all for now...see you next time :) !