Atari VCS Classic Stick Spinner Support

[sav2880]

I think this has been talked about in other circles/channels of the forum, but I couldn't find any singe discussion point for it, so I thought I'd just bring it up here.

I just picked up the Atari VCS Classic Stick. It's certainty a quirky little pad and the stick's feedback takes a bit of getting used to, especially in bluetooth mode (a friend who got it found that Button 3 is the Atari button which also powers up and down the Bluetooth, which can be a major issue if you're using it in Bluetooth mode and not wired, but that's a design issue, not a MiSTer specific issue!)

It does also seem to work in its native VCS mode, and I imagine would do just fine in XBox mode (which emulates an 8BitDo controller receiver by PID:UID wired). Those very twitchy controls do make it very easy to accidentally hit the wrong input when setting up the joystick.

The real fun here is the spinner that's built into the stick. While far from a perfect replacement for a real spinner, it could be an affordable option for some players, and I'm curious what it would take to support it, or maybe if that's just part of a larger effort that might be needed (especially with System 16 and other analog-style controls on the horizon) for broader input support.

My highly non-technical breakdown appears to be this, having asked friends who have done their own spinner builds. It looks like a lot of spinners seem to act like a mouse and move left-right based off of that. This device, instead, uses the dial control. So, as opposed to a mouse tracking DPI left to right (which you can see would work great with Arkanoid), it uses a dial analog control and just moves it from 0 to 1024 in the analog zone instead. I can happily upload a video to better explain it if it's not super clear.

So, to start the discussion, how hard is it to add this "dial" style support, which looks in Windows to act much like an analog control for throttle, to MiSTer to use as a proper spinner on games/cores?

(If I had decent coding skills myself, I'd take a hack at it, but I'm probably not the person for that! More of a tinkerer for sure.)

[FoxbatStargazer]

Got one of these myself hoping to use with mister. I find it hard not to get accidental down inputs though when pushing to the side, even with minimal force, which is ruining some games. The lack of microswitch feel is telling, but that seems to be true to the original?

I didn't even know there was an xbox mode... unfortunately the stick rotation doesn't seem to map to anything on it. VCS mode shows a dial control.

In VCS mode the context menu button and atari button both seem to be linked directly to f12? So that's like two out of five buttons you can hardly use/map on the stick.

[sav2880]

Got one of these myself hoping to use with mister. I find it hard not to get accidental down inputs though when pushing to the side, even with minimal force, which is ruining some games. The lack of microswitch feel is telling, but that seems to be true to the original?

I didn't even know there was an xbox mode... unfortunately the stick rotation doesn't seem to map to anything on it. VCS mode shows a dial control.

In VCS mode the context menu button and atari button both seem to be linked directly to f12? So that's like two out of five buttons you can hardly use/map on the stick.

I felt the same thing with mine! You definitely have to be very very careful when mapping it, as it's easy to hit an input on the UDLR that you didn't intend to, and have to start over again.

It's honestly the first controller that's made me want to have an external way to build an input file, which I don't know if that's even a thing. Nonetheless, yeah, if MiSTer can learn what to ever do with the dial control, I don't think it does yet, then this has possibilities, and I'd love to see them explored.

I get the sense we may get this as an after effect if we get more analog style controls as System 16 becomes more of a thing. We're gonna need some of that for Out Run after all, right?

[FoxbatStargazer]

Noticed a line in main update about "Atari VCS Joystick support"... wondering what this is about!

[FoxbatStargazer]

Finally got to try out the update and I think all my complaints have been addressed... every button can now be assigned freely, including the fiji and hamburger buttons. I also fired up arkanoid core and the spinner immediately worked right alongside bindable joystick controls, probably works in more cores but I don't really know which is which. It was very touchy though and I had to drop to low spinner resolution, and even then I had a hard time adjusting, but it seems to work at least! (My stick seems to get a little stuck when its at rest, making small rotations difficult..)

[skooter]

I guess it still doesn't work in the Atari 2600 core?

[FoxbatStargazer]

I don't know the 2600 very well but I just tried Super Breakout on it. Had to hit the "paddle button" and then I was controlling the bat by twisting the joystick shell.

[skooter]

That's good to know. The paddle support in the 2600 core is apparently broken. I can't use the real paddles with a 2600daptor because of that, though I can use them with Arkanoid and other arcade cores. I have a VCS Classic Stick ordered and "awaiting fulfillment" and hopefully I'll be able to play the paddle games with it.

[FoxbatStargazer]

Just a warning I'm kind of skeptical how good this is as a paddle/spinner, you've got a narrow stick that seems to have some resistance to start moving, it's probably not as great as a real paddle but finding modern USB ones seems difficult.

[dot-bob]

The spinner on the VCS classic controller has been working fine for me on the 2600 core. I have been playing Breakout, Warlords , and Night Driver. You may need to map the paddle button and use this button which causes the core to switch to paddle/spinner mode.

[skooter]

My VCS Classic Stick arrived today. I couldn't get the spinner to work at all, neither in the 2600 core nor in the Arkanoid core. Tried both modes. Tried wired and wireless. I can map all the buttons but I can't map the spinner. Should I need to?

In the 2600 core, pressing the paddle button makes the base jump to the left side, but it is not controllable.

In Arkanoid in Spinner mode, the base just makes really small jumps to the right but is not controllable.

In Windows, it works just fine. The spinner is controllable in the 5 button mode. So I guess it is not defective.

[dot-bob]

My VCS Classic Stick arrived today. I couldn't get the spinner to work at all, neither in the 2600 core nor in the Arkanoid core. Tried both modes. Tried wired and wireless. I can map all the buttons but I can't map the spinner. Should I need to?

In the 2600 core, pressing the paddle button makes the base jump to the left side, but it is not controllable.

In Arkanoid in Spinner mode, the base just makes really small jumps to the right but is not controllable.

In Windows, it works just fine. The spinner is controllable in the 5 button mode. So I guess it is not defective.

You don't need to map the spinner.

From the changlog:
- input: improve Atari VCS spinner handling, combo to enable/disable the spinner: hold down both red and back buttons then rotate spinner: right - Enable, left - Disable.

In other words hold both red buttons and the back button while turning the spinner clockwise to enable, and counter clockwise to disable.

-Bob

[skooter]

Thank you. I read the changelog when this update was released. But I completely forgot about the combo by the time my joystick arrived.

[RexMendicorvm]

Forgive my necro-posting, but I can't get the spinner to work on this thing using the "back-red" enable combo. Anyone have a clue as to what the issue is? Was the enabling code changed? TIA.

[KnightNZ]

Forgive my necro-posting, but I can't get the spinner to work on this thing using the "back-red" enable combo. Anyone have a clue as to what the issue is? Was the enabling code changed? TIA.

Holding down both red buttons, AND the back button, AND spinning the stick clockwise seems to work, a bit tricky to actually do it though.

The Arkanoid arcade core is a good test case.

[Daffyjjh]

So, anyone given any thought to try this controller with Ikari Warriors?

[Magnitudeten]

I would also like to know if you can use this for snk shooters like Ikari warriors etc.

[RexMendicorvm]

Was VCS spinner support removed? I don’t see any note of it in the changelog, but I can’t enable it after updating my Mister. Anyone else having trouble after updating?

EDIT: False alarm! It appears that one of the VCS joysticks was busted; the other one I have works. Regarding rotary joystick support: it does work in “Forgotten Worlds” (pretty well too!), but I couldn’t get in going in “Ikari Worlds.” I wonder what the difference is in the controller handling that makes one work but the other not. If anyone has any other rotary joystick games they’d like me test, lmk.

[darkwombat]

What should your settings be on before you do the combos to get it wo work? Paddle? Auto? Joystick?
Should it be in Atari mode (with the Atari logo on) or Xbox mode?

EDIT: Paddle obviously but auto works too.

Thanks!