Intellivision Core (INTV)

[Paradroyd]

You can see 16 directions working properly with 2 different adapters in the video Ashfall posted on the previous page. I had it working like this as well, briefly.

Interesting. I'll try to do some more testing tonight.

[zakk4223]

Looking at the core source:

digital inputs (up/down/left/right in Mister key binding) are mapped to 8 directions (N,NE,E,SE,S,SW,W,NW) on the intellivision controller.
ANALOG input is mapped to all 16 intellivision directions.

I'm not familiar with whatever adapters/controllers you are all using, but the key to getting 16 directions in this core is to have the directional input on your controller show up as an analog controller on MiSTer.

[Lightwave]

YES! I got 16 directions working!

You need to make sure that you set the last 2 analog control directions (down/right) at the very end of the MiSTer menu joystick button mapping sequence (NOT in the Intellivision core itself)

I'm guessing that I skipped mapping these previously, as I had already mapped the directional pad as a dpad (and also due to the fact that the direction pad doesn't register as analog during the initial detection test, making it seem like it isn't detected as an analog controller).

Tested in Cloudy Mountain and Discs of Tron, working exactly as it should now

@zakk4223 I wish I had seen your post as it would have saved me a lot of trouble, but I only noticed it when I came back to post my success here

[Paradroyd]

YES! I got 16 directions working!

You need to make sure that you set the last 2 analog control directions (down/right) at the very end of the MiSTer menu joystick button mapping sequence (NOT in the Intellivision core itself)

I'm guessing that I skipped mapping these previously, as I had already mapped the directional pad as a dpad (and also due to the fact that the direction pad doesn't register as analog during the initial detection test, making it seem like it isn't detected as an analog controller).

Tested in Cloudy Mountain and Discs of Tron, working exactly as it should now

@zakk4223 I wish I had seen your post as it would have saved me a lot of trouble, but I only noticed it when I came back to post my success here

Confirmed! It's working with my original Sears Intellivision controller and one of the Vision-daptors. It's not a subtle difference either, I can immediately tell that it's true 16 directions. Just to be sure I loaded that diagnostic demo and it's working.

It took me a couple of tries to figure out which part of the mapping you were talking about, but once I got it it's working great!

Thanks to everyone that's been working to figure this out over the past few days! Now I can quite having to resort to RetroPie for Intellivision.

I'll try it on my other MiSTer with my newer 2600-daptors with more Sears Intellivision controllers tomorrow and report back, but I'll bet it works fine taking the analog approach.

[rhester72]

Ditto - works well with the 2600-daptor D9 as well. Thank you!

[sfish]

Love the core so far. So many games to relive! Thank you!

I have noticed there are quite a few (more notably amongst the Intellicart group) that just simply won't load. They produce either a screen full of character garbage similar to when the core initially loads before I select a game or a blank screen with no content. Are these different enough from the original cart set that they would be harder to support or could I make an adjustment to the core configuration that would allow these games to play as well?

Some examples of games that won't load are:

• Flintstones Keyboard Fun (FLINTSTONES KEYBOARD FUN.bin)
• ZZZZ! - Spina the Bee (SPINABEE.ROM)
• Choplifter (CHOPLFT2.ROM)
• 2012 King of the Mountain (KINGMOUN.ROM)
• Super Chef BT (BURGRTM2.ROM)

I'd love to find a way to get these working, so I certainly welcome any suggestions or can wait patiently as the core is further developed.

UPDATE (a few hours later): Of course, I found my own solution by loading the ROM/BIN and trying different maps. At least for the first few I've tested, that solved my problem and gaming is afoot anew! Thanks again, for making such a wonderful core!!

[CartoonDonkey]

Thanks! Working now with Ultimate PC Interface as well!

[chocomochino]

I need to buy a controller, is there any suggested solution? not only the famicon one?

[rhester72]

It's pricey, but (in my experience) the 2600-daptor D9 in combination with the controllers from the Intellivision Flashback make a good (and authentic) pairing.

[chocomochino]

It's pricey, but (in my experience) the 2600-daptor D9 in combination with the controllers from the Intellivision Flashback make a good (and authentic) pairing.

thanks for the reply i thought no one was going to answer; yes its pricey, i'm wondering what to do, :/

[thorr]

thanks for the reply i thought no one was going to answer; yes its pricey, i'm wondering what to do, :/

I bought a real Intellivision with the brown controllers (they are better than the white ones) from ebay and got the 2600-daptor d9's and Intellivision db9 adapters. It was cheaper than buying the Flashback.

[rhester72]

@thorr I wanted to do the same, but from what I can tell only the Sears-manufactured model had straight cords (curly just isn't going to do it for me in this area). Is your experience different?

[chocomochino]

so is the "cheaper -better" option to get a joystick like a 2600 usb and just use they Keyboard?

[thorr]

@thorr I wanted to do the same, but from what I can tell only the Sears-manufactured model had straight cords (curly just isn't going to do it for me in this area). Is your experience different?

Mine are curly, but it doesn't bother me at all. Since it converts to USB, I can have a long straight USB cable and the coil is just there as part of the nostalgia experience.

The thing that bothered me I already took care of. The seemingly fragile white connectors with the tiny wires coming out of them. I inserted them into the DB9 adapters and sealed everything in hot glue to protect it.

so is the "cheaper -better" option to get a joystick like a 2600 usb and just use they Keyboard?

NOOOOOOOOOOO. That is a very bad option.

[akeley]

so is the "cheaper -better" option to get a joystick like a 2600 usb and just use they Keyboard?

If you have a modern console controller (I use DS4) you can map all the INTV keys to D-pad, shoulders, second stick, etc.

It's neither elegant, nor authentic, but it works... I don't care about INTV enough to spend a lot of $$$ on original controllers.

[remowilliams]

VAPS51.jpg (242.82 KiB) Viewed 20139 times

: )

[thorr]

That looks like a great option with one small drawback - it only supports 8 directions on the d-pad, and the Intellivision supports 16. Some games benefit from this.

Edit: just found it on ebay. They are almost $60 each, plus you have to buy the raphnet adapter.

[drgruney]

On the topic of controllers.

Here is my Arduino code for an INTV controller adapter that detects as a keyboard.
https://github.com/drgruney/Intellivision_USB

I've yet to try it on my MiSTer (I just got it two weeks ago) ... but the only changes that should be needed are remaps from letters to arrow keys for menu navigation.

Key mapping is commented into the code. It supports two players, all the directions, and pause. I also added push buttons to mine to reset and exit (made for RetroPie, could be easily reused for MiSTer I'd think.

I worked on a version that detects as a gamepad... I'll have to dig through my computer at home to see if I ever finished it.

[flicky]

NDK10

: )

Is this confirmed to work with Intellivision core?

[Lightwave]

NDK10

: )

Is this confirmed to work with Intellivision core?

It works with MiSTer, you just need to map the buttons for whatever core you are in.

[flicky]

Thanks.

How are you connecting it? Blisster, SNAC, daemonbite, some other way?

[Lightwave]

Thanks.

How are you connecting it? Blisster, SNAC, daemonbite, some other way?

In the photo posted, there is a Raphnet SNES to USB adapter. Daemonbite is also a good option.

SNAC will not work with anything other than a native controller, so a SNES controller cannot be used for Intellivision in this case.

[flicky]

Thanks!

I've never seen a raphnet adapter, I thought that was an extension cable.

[rcade]

To whomever is handling the Intellivision core- this came up on another emulation forum. The MiSTer core has this same error.

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/32567 ... nt-4927308

[Jukk@M]

Does this PS4 joystick + keyboard combination work? Has anyone tried?

PS4 keyboard.jpg (148.69 KiB) Viewed 19665 times

[flicky]

Could ask a similar question about the Xbox 360/One controller with keyboard attachment.

[KremlingKuthroat19]

Been playing around with the core and made some interesting discoveries. For non-ECS games, there seems to be some garbled graphics during transition screens. Also, it appears that these games don't work when the ECS is turned on in the core:
-Centipede
-Congo Bongo
-Dig Dug
-Pac-Man

I haven't tested out the ECS games yet. It seems best practice to have ECS turned off by default and only turned on when playing ECS games.

Further, from my testing it appears that the disc pressing button (similar to how L3 and R3 work) isn't a mapped button on this core. I made a Github ticket regarding this, fyi: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Intv_MiSTer/issues/16

Lastly, a common issue is that if the bios is split then they'll appear in the games directory. I've discovered that if they're merged then they don't appear in the games directory when selecting a game.

I'd like to document some of this stuff on the wiki and update the readme section that's pretty bare bones. This core is pretty new but I'm glad to be able to give my experience of it so far

[PistolsAtDawn]

Edit: It is not currently possible and may not ever be. I spoke with Retronic Designs about it.

Has anyone gotten a Flashback controller and a Retronic Designs DB9 to USB adapter to work successfully with this MiSTer core? I can seemingly setup the controller in the OSD, but it does not work well in games.

I've got the current Intellivision Flashback firmware flashed to the adapter (3.2a), but I am not sure that it is going to be compatible based on what I'm seeing from a couple of HTML5 gamepad test websites as well as Windows settings menus. The controller (I think accurately?) shows multiple button presses for each keypad key or direction disc press. I have the AtGames Flashback console and controllers, but I've also tried the Alt firmware (for the Dollar General store version) to be sure that isn't the source of my trouble getting the controller setup on the MiSTer.

The author of the jzIntv emulator created a "hackfile" work-around for the Retronic adapter / Intellivison controller combo (and he considers it an ugly hack). It is included in the current version of jzIntv in order to enable the controller to work with the emulator. Given this, I'm not confident in this working properly within the MiSTer framework - but I'm hoping to be wrong!

If you have gotten this adapter to work with the MiSTer core, please let me know. I have original Intellivision controllers I could use too if that is what I need to do. Thanks in advance!

[panik]

For those who have the Flashback controllers working (with 16 directions), how did you get the controllers connected to the MiSTer?

So far I've tried the Retronic Universal D-SUB9 Joystick adapter to USB. The MiSTer accepts the controller input and I can even map the buttons for the Intellivision core (pad left/down/right/up, clear/enter, 0-9, action up, action left action right).

But when I load a game, the game does not recognize input from the controller. Is there a special way I'm supposed to be configuring these things?

I also have a Ultimate PC Interface for Classic Consoles / Intellivision and Colecovision coming in the mail, we'll see if that works any better.

But I'm curious: for people who got the controllers working, which adapters did you use and what steps did you follow to configure the controllers?

[insanityprawnboy]

Can anyone suggest a good controller setup for this core if we don't have an original Intellivision controller?

I'm pretty happy with my Intellivision controller setup for MiSTer. I'm using Intellvision Flashback controllers plugged in through an Ultimate PC Interface. It works well with MiSTer and I'm able to map two controllers for players 1 & 2. This interface plugs into the MiSTer through USB and connects to a variety of DB9 connector controllers, such as Flashback, INTV2, Atari 2600 and Colecovision controllers.

Even though AtGames has a mixed track record, these Intellvision Flashback controllers are very faithful to the original INTV Model 1 controllers. They're much better IMO than INTV2 controllers. The late Keith Robinson, original Blue Sky Rangers and President of Intellvision Productions, worked closely with AtGames to ensure the Flashback was a great product.

I used a special version of this Ultimate PC Interface I ordered from Byte Knight on AtariAge. It was designed specifically to fit in an Intellvision Flashback case, so people could put it and a Raspberry Pi in the shell to make an "Ultimate Flashback." I put this in a shell (without the RPi) to use exclusively as a USB interface. I hung the USB cable through the original AV hole in the back of the case. I like the look.

I believe Byte Night still makes these boards if you have a spare INTV Flashback. You could use the shell to house the USB interface and you'll have great controllers for it. These Flashback systems tend to be expensive on Ebay, so I'd check your local thrift stores or Facebook Marketplace to find better deals. Many people got them as 2014 impulse Christmas gifts and barely played them, so they're ripe for re-homing.

From what I can tell, the one drawback is that this setup gives you 8 directions on the controller disc ("d pad"). The original INTV gave you 16 directions and therefore more precise movement. I haven't noticed this as too big a limitation but it's worth noting.

Finally, I played Astrosmash on an Intellvision Flashback with Keith Robinson back in 2015 at the SXSW tech conference. Very cool.

Hello,

I ordered a Flashback controller the other day. The last one that was on eBay (least for the time being). They're quite rare.

I'm new to the MiSTer, I've had it less than a week!. I couple of days ago I ordered a DB9 LLAPI cable, thinking that's all I would need. Now, having read some comments, including yours, I'm thinking that might not be what I wanted to get for the Intellivision Flashback controller (though it'll still come in handy for my Atari joystick).

I've gone on what you said and ordered an Ultimate PC interface. Quite expensive with postage to the U.K from the U.S, on top of buying an Intellivision Flashback controller from the US via Ebay as well!