It pains me whenever something we fixed lands back on our bench once again. Perhaps we should’ve seen the warning signs the first time around. Perhaps we did not test this controller thoroughly enough. Regardless of the error in our ways, the Nvidia controller is back on my bench and this time around it’s finally un-fucked while learning some things around the way.
Care to listen to my multi-thousand-word diatribe? Buckle up and keep on reading!
We’re going to repair a Wico Joystick which is almost vintage at this level. In the early days of gaming ranging from the 4-bit consoles of the Atari 2600 all the way up to the 16-bit consoles of the Amiga Computer, the DB-9 Joystick was the most universal gaming device you could own. This is a quick entry showing how we are able to get these refurbished for another possible 10-15 years of service. Also, we’re going to try not to suck at it as well.
This entry isn’t as much of a tutorial but an over view of a device that has been selling on the net known as a “Zero delay USB Joystick Encoder.” It goes by other names such as a a “DIY Arcade replacement controller” or a “DIY Joystick control board.” Either way you slice it these boards are coming from China anywhere from as low as Three U.S. Dollars to as much as ten U.S. dollar depending on the features you want such as wiring harness and USB cables. Would you like to know more?
When I first started this blog I created a posting about how I could build a better controller for Stepmania by using a device called an I-Pac. In the MAME community the I-Pac does what modern day mechanical keyboards do by assigning each key its own interrupt onto a micro-controller giving you the absolute fastest response between your joystick and your PC. The only way you could go any faster then this device is by bypassing the USB bus all together and wiring your controller via GPIO onto something like a Raspberry Pi.
A while back I talked about the Chinese Xbox wireless receiver for Xbox360 Wireless Controllers and how to configure it. You can get these on Ebay for very cheap “I got mine for about $7 with free S&H. Some would also call these controllers ‘fake’ as they are not certified by Microsoft. Which out of the box they do not work, you have to setup the driver on windows as described in my last entry. One of the sections that I skimmed over the android side and how it all works. Well, this is a quick blog entry showing what I did after I received my controller from china.
I don’t think I would consider myself an aggressive gamer to really abuse the Ouya Controller. I have a total of 63 games loaded on my Ouya with over half of them being side-loaded emulators coupled with all of the things I learned in previous blogs about this consoles journey. Multiple times I have re-rooted this Ouya and even had to firmware reset it a few times as well. Throughout all of this, the controller is the real item that takes the beating in any game console. I know some of this will view my blog as being nitpicky however there are people who want to take care of their consoles and treat them with a fair amount of respect so that it can last a very long time. Read on if you want to know more or just want to take notes if you are buying a used Ouya Controller on the used market.
SuperTux has been a long standing game on the linux which emulated a classic nintendo game “Super Mario Brothers” and gave it it’s own open source images and control system. With the help of the libsdl port for android. SuperTux can now be played on the Ouya as well!
StepMania love coming at you! This is a quasi blog and guide on how we got our dance pads to work well with StepMania thanks to the I-PAC. Just keep in mind that my solution is not the cheapest in the world. We were going for a solid solution when I moved my pads from PC to PC.
Let’s Begin!