Ground is ground right?

potator · Post by **potator** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 8:47 pm

So, I'm making an Atari portable and a half. The main system will have the console and a screen and speakers and whatnot, but I will also have a sister-system. This smaller unit will have its own battery, screen, speakers, and controls. I'm trying to connect these two halves with as few wires as possible. I found an extension cable for a serial cable lying around from the 90s. It has nine connector pins. I figure:

1) up
2) down
3) left (paddle trigger)
4) right
5) main trigger
6) paddle sense (I can get +5 volts from the battery)
7) Audio

Video
9) Difficulty

So my question is this: can I use the ground in the smaller system to pull the buttons low, or do I have to connect back to the main system's ground? (especially for the paddle's FGC) If the latter is the case, I can just wire the difficulty switches on a DPDT, but I much rather have independent difficulty control.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:26 pm

Ground is ground if you have them all physically connected together. In which case that would work.

If they arent connected together than nothing will work.

potator · Post by **potator** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:19 pm

No worries: there's actually 10 wires in a D-9. Who knew?

nitro2k01 · Post by **nitro2k01** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:31 pm

potator wrote:No worries: there's actually 10 wires in a D-9. Who knew?

One of them is probably connected to the shielding.

potator · Post by **potator** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 8:06 pm

yeah, it is