I just moved to a new appartment and ended up putting an a600 in the tv console to play some games on the living room tv. But the joystick cable made it very unconfortable to play in front of a 60" tv...

The few wireless atari style (ir) joysticks I have tried earlier was no good, and many retro players are fanatic of what stick is best (zipstick vs comp pro :P).
So I started a project to make an adapter where I can plug in two joysticks that sends it wireless (over radio) to an adapter on my amiga.

Project is well under way and I am waiting for my pcb to be produced.

While testing out the reciever part I triggered the different joystick actions localy thru a serial terminal. Then the idea hit me, would it work to "record" a players joystick actions, and then replay it again afterwards. Games like Paperboy is rather static (not mutch random going on), so I guessed it would be possible to let the adapter finish the game all by itself.

I dont see any use for it, but seems fun :)

What do you guys thing, will it work?

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@SydneyBloom

I'm sure there'll be quite a few people who'd like one of these kits.

Maybe be you could prank someone with the recorded joystick actions. OMG my A600 is haunted.

@SydneyBloom

I can see use for that recording feature. They might not be often in use, but couple of examples that come to my mind. Bug hunting. For example you make a game that is static by nature, and you make it for several machines. You encounter unusual bug during play that you are not really able to repeat without that recording device, and on top of being able to repeat it, you can also repeat it on other supported systems to check if bug occurs on them too, or only on that one platform.

Then comes the celebrity things. What if worlds best Super Mario player uses your recording joystick to play Super Mario Bros in world record, or at least close to it speed. Now theres something to both brag about to your friends, and also a sell point of a joystick which includes world record playing Super Mario recording in it. Not to mention that you can show your friends how good a Super Mario player you are by using that recorded session without them knowing :)

etc.

i can definetily see uses for that recording. Perhaps not very necessary, but very much fun.

@SydneyBloom

Interesting project.

But you also need some device features as for example LED lights or on screen display, in order to make player aware that device is playing a "recorded" game session...

And mainly joystick needs the feature of "stopping" recorded session in any moment and continue playing live, just to avoid it replays a "certain death" previously recorded event.

I do recall that Action Replay cartridge had such similar feature if I remember well.

I hope I was clear with my poor english on what about I want to point to thread...

Also I could spend good money for purchasing a wireless system for ancient serial/atari joysticks.

And More!

I will sure kill for the wireless system if it could act also as universal adapter to make joysticks to adapt to any computer or console device...

Just imagine wireless gaming and plugging Amiga joysticks directly to old PC serial or new USB ports of modern PCs, or Nintendo 64 or PStation gamepads to Amiga/Atari computers or connect analogue/digital classic joysticks to recent or new XBox/Wii consoles for retrogaming.

It will be a killer device with literally immense market.

Last edited by Raffaele on 28-Nov-2014 at 06:07 AM.
Last edited by Raffaele on 28-Nov-2014 at 06:06 AM.
Last edited by Raffaele on 28-Nov-2014 at 06:05 AM.

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"When the Amiga came out, everyone [at Apple] was scared as hell." (J.L. Gassée, former CEO of Apple France and chief of devs of Mac II-fx, interviewed by Amazing Computing, Nov 1996).

That would great on emulating Amigagames on WinUae.

Had to buy an extension cord to the Golden Images mouse after towering.

@SydneyBloom

Oh, good work! I've been working on a very similar project myself! Great Minds eh? Yours is further along if you're ordering PCBs, mine's still on a breadboard. Though I'm planning on supporting keyboard and mouse too. Maybe that's something you might add?

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RobTheNerd.com | InstallerGen | SMBMounter | Atoms-X

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions.

As the ("computer end") pcb is in production I am not going to add any more HW features for now (joy/mouse etc), but good ideas.
But a lot of features can be done in software.

But I have imagnined a great use for this setup.
I have a friend who is an expert at paperboy. She can easily record playing thru the whole week.
Then I can get the file and "skip" the first levels so I don't need to replay them every time I die, and eventually I might just get thru the &$%! thing.

@Daedalus:
I had a breadboard setup until now, but since I went directly for a 2-port solution it got very cluttered very fast. I hate doing sw on unstable hw (unlike the Lorraine guys, hehe). So I gave up and went straight for a pcb :)

The pcbs has the following features:

Computer end:
- 2x 9 pins joystick connectors (Layout is for connectors, but I think I will just solder on some short cables with connectors for the computer end, so I don't need two additional 9pin-9pin cables).
- 3 leds: Run/record/playback
- 2 buttons: Select and set (toggle thru the 3 options).
- Micro sdcard socket (fat16/32 supported).
- Power from joyport.

The joystick end is not done yet (only prototype stage) but currently it has two joystick ports and a 9 volt battery, not mutch more. I thing I'll add a slide button or something to select mode (run/record/playback) so I can control it without getting up of the chair (since thats the point with the whole thing).

I have not yet setteled on a script file format for the recordings (since the project started out as a wireless controller unit), but in my tests I just had a semi colon seperated format with first field beeing a timestamp (number of millis since start), joyport number and action (up, down, left,right,fire,up&left, up&right, etc).
Anyway, would be easy to tweak the script in a text editor or something if one wanted to perfect the script and cut some milliseconds here and there :)

I have not planed for a display, so I will try it out with only a single game script on the sdcard at a time. However I have added an ISP connector (for firmware updating) on the pcb, so it would be an easy job to add a display, if this record/playback even works :)

@Raffaele
Usage will be something like:
- You set the device in record, and play thru the game as you normaly would.
- Afterwards you set the device in playback mode. The playback starts as soon as you hit the firebutton.
- Any joystick movement after this will stop the playback and you are free to play.

But I am not planing any usb support, there is allready many devices for this. However I guess you would be able to connect my device to an adapter?


Anyway, this is just meant as a private project, and it might not work at all, but the wireless stuff is easy enough so I am sure that part turns out great.

I'll keep you guys posted on my progress, it might not be super fast due to high workload at work, but It's all about prioritizing :)

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Welcome to the game

@SydneyBloom

Sounds like a serious project, and very sophisticated with your SD card support and all, well done! It sounds like you have a good idea for the script as well, the ability to export and modify it is nice.

Yes, I think the thing to concentrate on is classic 9-pin support. USB could of course be added later but I think that's a big jump in complexity that's probably better taken care of as a separate unit.

Good luck with it! And let me know if you want to swap ideas / share help

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RobTheNerd.com | InstallerGen | SMBMounter | Atoms-X

@Daedalus

As soon as I verify that this actually work I will go ahead and make it all public, including the firmware. Hopefully I can get help from others to make this a neat little add on. The reciever pcb is scheduled to arrive on friday, so I know what I'll be doing this weekend :)

On the transmitter (joystick) end I wanted to find a suitable "off the shelf" box to design the pcb around. My initial plan was to have one box with two 9 pins connectors and a battery pack (9 volt).

Browsing the site of a case suplier I often use for work, I found a wii-mote looking enclosure with 2xAA compartment. It looks very slick. So I was thinking why not add buttons to it so you can use it stand alone as a wii remote in retro mode (Holding it horizontal with d pad to left and button to the right) and a mouse in vertical mode). For some games that might acually be usable, it works for the cdtv, and will not make the design more complicated. (I have not studied how the amiga mouse works, but I guess the AVR can simulate the signals without any problems).

Would ofcourse keep the 9pin for external joystick of your choice, as original intended, but you would need two of this boxes for 2 player games. (A bit more expensive, but more freedom).

Case in question i this:
http://www.polycase.com/vk-62-black#

What do you think?

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Welcome to the game

@SydneyBloom

Neat project. Just plain cool.

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Tinkering with computers.

@SydneyBloom

Yeah, that looks like a nice case, good idea! Will be interested to see how it turns out. Good luck!

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RobTheNerd.com | InstallerGen | SMBMounter | Atoms-X

So the pcb for computer end arrived at work early today, so I did a quick assembly during lunch (as you can notice by the crooked transistors :)

Unfortunately I (with I being the company I work for, hehe) did not have any micro-sd socket lying around, so have to order that one. But not to important right now.

The card has a lot of free space on it, so I can make it smaller if needed, but it's not like it's huge now (75x70mm).

Anyway, good to go for some programing fun this weekend.

Last edited by SydneyBloom on 04-Dec-2014 at 03:25 PM.

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Welcome to the game

Hooked up to my a600 and just wrote a small script to see if it worked and launched ik+:


First test

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