Vectrex: Has anyone had experience with these?

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 11:10 pm

I am wondering if anyone has had experience with the GCE Vectrex, not necessarily for portablization purposes, but for controller mods.

I'd like to take an SNES controller and make it work on a Vectrex. I am willing to do HEAVY modification to the controller, even removing all the existing components, but do not wish to even open the Vectrex. They are far too rare.

The Vectrex has a joystick, 4 buttons, and a 9-pin connector(like most Atari, Commodore, and Sega systems of the 1980s).

If Nintendo got their design for the Famicom's controller from someone else, it was likely from these guys, as it is horizontally alligned and the buttons are on the right, the joystick on the left, and it is held like an NES controller. Also the Vectrex was made in '82, a full year before the Famicom. O_o

Post by **gannon** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 11:15 pm

Odds are it uses standard connections like the atari, instead of a chip like the nes or snes, so you should just need the controllers pinout

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 11:18 pm

gannon wrote:Odds are it uses standard connections like the atari, instead of a chip like the nes or snes, so you should just need the controllers pinout

I'll look for it then...I hope I can actually find it though. It isn't a common system by any means.

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 11:21 pm

You mean this?
Seems really easy (but would require massive rewiring).

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 11:32 pm

SgtBowhack wrote:You mean this?
Seems really easy (but would require massive rewiring).

Nice! I wish I knew what resistance the pots were.... and if the buttons need 5 or -5 Volts....

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 11:39 pm

This is the original page. It doesn't really have much extra info though. As for the pot values, you don't really need them... you could just have like a 100ohm and 200ohm resistor in series, hook the 100ohm end to +5v, do the same to -5v, hook the 200ohm end to ground, and then you'll have +3.4v and -3.4v in the middle (roughly). You don't *need* to use 100 or 200 ohm resistors, of course, but it's easier for me to write numbers than say x and 2x

Anyway, using those, you can just use the buttons as normal, making the commons those two values (of course, you'll need to make sure the direction's common is separated so you don't hook -3.4v to +3.4v, but I'm sure you know that.

As for the other buttons... they work like normal (ground is the common).

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 11:58 pm

SgtBowhack wrote:This is the original page. It doesn't really have much extra info though. As for the pot values, you don't really need them... you could just have like a 100ohm and 200ohm resistor in series, hook the 100ohm end to +5v, do the same to -5v, hook the 200ohm end to ground, and then you'll have +3.4v and -3.4v in the middle (roughly). You don't *need* to use 100 or 200 ohm resistors, of course, but it's easier for me to write numbers than say x and 2x Anyway, using those, you can just use the buttons as normal, making the commons those two values (of course, you'll need to make sure the direction's common is separated so you don't hook -3.4v to +3.4v, but I'm sure you know that. As for the other buttons... they work like normal (ground is the common).

Not a bad idea...not bad at all...

Also, if one did not mind the loss of wattage, that mod could be done to make an N64 run solely off of the 7805....

But why would I not need the pot values?

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 12:04 am

Well, the potentiometer values are only going to tell you what the resistance is, so you get the right voltage. But you have the voltages already, and if you're planning on using an SNES joypad, putting pots in there is kinda silly. So... yeah, that's why

Potentiometers just act as voltage dividers anyway in this case, it sounds like. You could put in a pair of potentiometers, but I think odds are four resistors would be cheaper (and you'd be putting out a teeny bit less than +/-3.4v, so you'd be at less risk of damaging things).

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 12:06 am

SgtBowhack wrote:Well, the potentiometer values are only going to tell you what the resistance is, so you get the right voltage. But you have the voltages already, and if you're planning on using an SNES joypad, putting pots in there is kinda silly. So... yeah, that's why Potentiometers just act as voltage dividers anyway in this case, it sounds like. You could put in a pair of potentiometers, but I think odds are four resistors would be cheaper (and you'd be putting out a teeny bit less than +/-3.4v, so you'd be at less risk of damaging things).

So basically this would let me replace the pots with a D-Pad? Nice. ^^

Also, I should seriously consider turbo for this thing....

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 12:10 am

MM007 wrote:So basically this would let me replace the pots with a D-Pad? Nice. ^^

Pretty much, yep. Though like I said, it'd require some (read: a lot of) rewiring. Down and left would have a common pin attached to your -3.4v and up and right would be +3.4v (on the SNES, they're all GND or +5v, so you'd have to cut a lot of possibly heavy traces here). The four buttons would be pretty easy though, since a lot of controllers use the same mechanism as the Vectrex (I think the SNES pad might work without modification here, but of course, since you're rewiring everything anyway here, you'll just make ground the common).

JackFrost22 · Post by **JackFrost22** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:26 am

some veccy projects http://www94.pair.com/jsoper/vec_other.html