Use an SNES controller on the gamecube

Punchinello · Post by **Punchinello** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 10:16 am

What I want to do is make it possible to use an actual SNES controller to play SNES games on the Wii's virtual console. I do realize they have a digital gamecube controller (with a big D-Pad) out there already, but I really want to use an actual SNES controller. I would think that this would be a relatively easy modification to do, but I am not sure how to start. Anyone know exactly how the pinouts of the gamecube controllers work compared to the SNES controllers?

Rekarp · Post by **Rekarp** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 10:22 am

What you could do (easiest way) would be to hack up both a SNES controller and gamecube controller and just map the SNES buttons to the corresponding buttons on the gamecube pcb. The really hard way would be to try to make a converter which is more than likely improbable to do.

Gamecube pinout

SNES pinout

jeroen · Post by **jeroen** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 11:13 am

http://www.retrousb.com/wii.html tada!

Rekarp · Post by **Rekarp** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 11:15 am

jeroen wrote:http://www.retrousb.com/wii.html tada!

ok maybe thats the super easy way haha

Punchinello · Post by **Punchinello** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 1:23 pm

jeroen wrote:http://www.retrousb.com/wii.html tada!

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I saw these already. I would really like to do this myself, rather than spend the $20.

Is it really possible to just map the buttons? I have a feeling that hte controllers work in a completely different way. Does anyone know?

bgnome · Post by **bgnome** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 1:55 pm

Punchinello wrote:
jeroen wrote:http://www.retrousb.com/wii.html tada!
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I saw these already. I would really like to do this myself, rather than spend the $20.

Is it really possible to just map the buttons? I have a feeling that hte controllers work in a completely different way. Does anyone know?

if you check the pinout pages, you will see that the GC controller outputs 64bits of data on the serial data line, while the SNES pad only outputs 16bits of data. this is definitely not a remap job. it is likely that the retrousb adapter uses some specific hardware to do the data translation. that does not sound particularly "easy" to me.

i would think hacking button contacts on a gc controller pcb would be the easiest, albeit not particularly pleasing to the eye. you could even try hacking a classic controller pcb into an SNES controller, but what really is the point in that? you might as well spend that $20 on the retrousb cable..

Post by **gannon** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 2:34 pm

Yes, you can remap the buttons using a PIC and a program that decodes the SNES signal and re-encodes it as the GC signal.

lifeisbetterwithketchup · Fri Jan 26, 2007 5:01 pm

gannon wrote:Yes, you can remap the buttons using a PIC and a program that decodes the SNES signal and re-encodes it as the GC signal.

Yeah, I know there was someone here who did something like that with allowing a GC controller to be used with an N64. I'll try to dig up the thread.

EDIT: found it http://benheck.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=5091