Using Genesis and PS1/PS2 controllers with the Apple II?

[Richard]

I just found this adapter on eBay. Since Genesis controllers are compatible with Atari, this is a loophole to allow using a Genesis controller with an Apple II, right? Has anybody tried this? Does it work? I would want to do it if it worked.

Another possibility with that Atari adapter is connecting it to this adapter to use a PS1/PS2 controller with the Apple II.

 

[david__schmidt]

I just found this adapter on eBay. Since Genesis controllers are compatible with Atari, this is a loophole to allow using a Genesis controller with an Apple II, right? Has anybody tried this? Does it work? I would want to do it if it worked.

The 8-way directional joystick design of Atari is fundamentally different than the 2-dimensional potentiometer design of Apple. Do you have a particular type of game you want to play that this would make sense with? I.e. playing PacMan is probably easier with an Atari-style joystick than an Apple one.

 

[Richard]

I just prefer using D-pads over joysticks which is why I wanted to use a Genesis controller. Would it work?

 

[david__schmidt]

"It depends."

Take a read here:

http://lukazi.blogspot.com/2009/04/game-controller-atari-joysticks.html

There are different ways to adapt the digital-to-analog world of Atari-to-Apple controllers. And how games respond is going to differ as well. I think you're going to have to jump in and see if games you like respond the way you'd expect given the new inputs they're getting.

 

[Hatta]

Using the analog playstation thumbstick with an Apple II would be really nice. Has anyone done that?

 

[Osgeld]

well the playstation controllers are not just shift register driven, like most older pads (atari excluded) they use a fairly pita serial protocall

course in this day and age it would be nothing to get an arduino, which already has playstation controller code and pipe it out to something the apple // could understand (or nes or sega)

If i were not already in a long and involved process with my arduino I would play with it, but if there is still interest in a month (when my deadline is up for the current project) I would be more than glad to whip up a board

 

[arfink]

Of course, option 3 is to yank the analog stick from the PS1 and just wire it straight into a custom controller. Soldering iron would be your friend there.

 

[H3NRY]

There was a third party adapter to use Atari joysticks on an Apple II. Good luck finding one, though! At the time, Apple joysticks were as common and cheap as the Atari ones, so there wasn't a lot of interest in such a doohickey.