Noob - Radica Pads to USB??

Goldberg · Post by **Goldberg** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:16 am

Hi all, firstly hello and what a great forum. I bought one of these Radica Street Fighter 2 games with a view to do exactly what this forum is dedicated too! Excellent!

But 1 thing I cannot find (Did a quick search) is information on how to make the Radica Pads work on a PC.

My intention is to make them USB so that they wil work on the PC and also if possible add USB connections to the Radica so I can plug them back in if needed.

Also after reading some of the threads, would it be possible to add a cartridge slot then hard wire a flash card into it which will have a USB connection to change the roms this way?

Sorry if too many questions or repeated questions, the pads is the main one i'm interested in doing.

Many thanks in advance.

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:09 pm

Three words: im-frickin'-possible.

While the typical consumer isn't aware of it, USB connections require a TON of extra hardware and driver support and... the list goes on. In short, forget about it. Sorry.

USB is a four-wire serial connection, with a TON of protocol that needs to be supported. You'd *maybe* have a chance with parallel ports... but I doubt it.

The fact of the matter is, you shouldn't even bother. There are plenty of cheap USB controllers out there, and there are Genesis emulators out there that are probably just as good or better than what you're planning on (and, needless to say, way cheaper). If you really want to use a Genesis controller, you can rewire the innards of something like this into a Genesis controller.

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:17 pm

Whoops! For some reason this got double-posted. And I couldn't delete it :/

daguuy · Post by **daguuy** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:34 pm

are you asking how to connect a genesis controller to a PC? this shows how.

Post by **bicostp** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 5:28 pm

I thought of an easier way. I'm thinking of buying a cheap USB gamepad from CompUSA, gutting it, and adding the proper connector to it so you can plug in an unmodified Genesis controller and use it on the PC. (it would work with Atari 2600 joysticks too.) Basically it would be just connecting the right pins on the connector to the right traces on the controller board. No need for no-name drivers from who-knows-who!

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 5:43 pm

bicostp: You'd need to decode the signals of the Genesis controller then. I had a circuit for that somewhere, I think it used a 555 timer and some flip-flops, but I don't remember. It's not straight parallel (a pin doesn't match a button).

EDIT: Here is the website I was thinking of for the decoder circuit. From this, you can convert the Genesis input directly to something that you can solder on the USB controller.

Post by **bicostp** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:16 pm

Huh. I thought it would work fine since it works perfectly on the 2600...

This is why I post these sorts of things here before I try them; to make sure it will work.

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:41 pm

http://www.atariage.com/2600/faq/?SystemID=2600#sega explains about that

Actually, it's luck. If you look at the Genesis controller pinouts, you'll see that pin 7 is select. That should be a clock signal, but your Atari leaves it floating. Therefore, up, down, left and right are all tied to the pins directly, like on the 2600. Likewise, a single button (B) is connected directly where the fire button is. I'm somewhat surprised it works at all, because according to pinouts I've seen, pin 5 (+5v) is floating on the Atari. I'm guessing the muxing chip sees two floating pins where it's expecting a +5v and clock and says "Hey, they're the same. Whatever. I'll just stay high then."

Then again, it's possible both pins 5 and 7 are really +5v on an Atari. I don't have anything but the Flashback 2 here.

So, in short, yes, you can get everything but buttons A and Start on a 3 button Genesis controller working using the method you mentioned earlier (and by tieing pins 5 and 7 to voltage from the USB).

Reploid Ayla · Post by **Reploid Ayla** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:33 pm

SgtBowhack wrote:Three words: im-frickin'-possible.

While the typical consumer isn't aware of it, USB connections require a TON of extra hardware and driver support and... the list goes on. In short, forget about it. Sorry.

USB is a four-wire serial connection, with a TON of protocol that needs to be supported. You'd *maybe* have a chance with parallel ports... but I doubt it.

The fact of the matter is, you shouldn't even bother. There are plenty of cheap USB controllers out there, and there are Genesis emulators out there that are probably just as good or better than what you're planning on (and, needless to say, way cheaper). If you really want to use a Genesis controller, you can rewire the innards of something like this into a Genesis controller.

with parallel ports, an operation similar to this is entirely possible.

using different eprom you could make a flash card compatible with genesis, then just permanently attach that flash device to the radica.

if making flash cards for genesis is possible, then attaching that directly/permanently to the board is completely possible as well.

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:29 pm

Why not just slice off the whole IC part of the controller, leaving only the switchpads. Then fit a small USB game controller in the empty space, and wire the switchpads to it. That would be a pretty easy and cheap way to do it I think.

Goldberg · Post by **Goldberg** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 2:24 am

I know it has been done with a Saturn pad using a cheap USB Pad Controller, and also their is awebsite that sells chips/mods the retro pads for you to make them USB, I was actually hoping to do it myself however.

Links:
http://www.gamesx.com/controldata/usbsatpad/

http://www.retrousb.com/index.html

Thanks for the replies guys

Goldberg · Post by **Goldberg** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 2:26 am

Almost forgot to mention. I got my Street Fighter 2 Radica from Argos in the UK for Â£6.24!!!

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/p ... 721214.htm

Finding it hard to locate one now but they do still have some in stores. Hope this helps.

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 5:42 am

Nice price

Still, I don't think it's that worthwhile. 6 button USB pads are dead cheap. I actually use that PlayStation-type pad whose link I pasted in. It feels kind of light and hollow, but it's a damn fine pad. Likewise, you can do as G-Force said. Probably what that company does. On a Genesis pad though, if you can fit in a second board, it'd possibly be easier to just desolder the encoder IC itself. I've done that and moved some wires around to get all 8 of the Genesis buttons to the DB-9 (plus the GND, since buttons are active-low on the Genesis, as I recall).

By the way, the Saturn pad does have a USB version in Japan already (Sega licensed and everything), so this guy just destroyed 2 pads to get one that already exists

Reploid Ayla: Yeah, someone said exactly that like 3-4 posts above you (about the parallel port thing). Though I guess no one did mention that the flash ROM part is possible (albeit expensive and requiring software that supports it, etc.) However, there's about zero chance that programming it over USB would ever happen (most homebrew programmers are serial/parallel port for a reason)