XE-1 AP Analog Controller

[sonik]

The XE-1 AP is an analog controller for the genesis/megadrive.
It have 3 analog axis (X, Y, Slider) plus 10 buttons.

Only a few games supports it but they play way better in analog mode.
Currently only the emulator Genesis Plus GX supports it.

Supported games according to segaretro and sega-16

Megadrive:

• After Burner II
• Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II
• Fastest 1
• Galaxy Force II
• Musha Aleste: Full Metal Fighter Ellinor

Mega-CD:

• After Burner III
• Night Striker (you must connect it to port 2 and use a regular controller in port 1 to choose the analog mode)
• Star Blade

32X:

• After Burner Complete
• Space Harrier

X68000:

• Afterburner
• Dash Yarou
• Knight Arms
• Metal Sight
• Neural Gear
• Overtake
• Racing Champ
• Space Cruiser
• Space Harrier (requires patch which was officially distributed with Afterburner)
• Star Luster
• Super Hang-On
• Syvalion
• Thunder Blade

FM Towns:

• After Burner III
• Chase HQ
• Galaxy Force II
• Turbo Outrun
• Wing Commander*
• Wing Commander 2*
• Wing Commander Armada*
• Wing Commander Secret Missions*

*Needs confirmation.



Support for it on mister cores would be great!

XE1AP.jpg (142.52 KiB) Viewed 10552 times

And yes, it's ugly

[dshadoff]

I've got one of these and the XHE-3 adaptor to use with the PC Engine.

4 (possibly 5) games on PC Engine support this, all of them from NEC Avenue:
AfterBurner II
Forgotten Worlds
Operation Wolf
Outrun
Thunder Blade (possibly)

I have been studying the signalling protocol recently, and some initial information can be found in this document:
https://github.com/dshadoff/PCE_Controller_Info

I also found that another good source of information is the October 1990 issue of the Japanese magazine "マイコンBASIC", pages 79-82.

I was considering making a module to emulate the behaviour (initially for PC Engine, but the module would be intended to be shared), but it all depends on my available time.

[JehutyXR]

Nice Topic. The Controller is also compatible with some games on the FM Towns. I got one of these controllers and i own a Sharp Cyberstick which is compatible with the XE1-AP in PC Mode. I use the Cyberstick on X68000, FM Towns and via adapter on the PC Engine but it doesn´t have the MD <> PC Switch. So, is there a way to use the Cyberstick with a Genesis / Mega Drive ?

[sonik]

Cool!

I was considering making an adapter with ps1 and saturn analog input, and genesis analog output.
But would be better to have support for it on the core and use any other analog joystick.

BTW the info in your github page is very handy.
Thanks for documenting and sharing it. I've used it to make pce controller reading on arduino.

[dshadoff]

Nice Topic. The Controller is also compatible with some games on the FM Towns. I got one of these controllers and i own a Sharp Cyberstick which is compatible with the XE1-AP in PC Mode. I use the Cyberstick on X68000, FM Towns and via adapter on the PC Engine but it doesn´t have the MD <> PC Switch. So, is there a way to use the Cyberstick with a Genesis / Mega Drive ?

There are a lot of different possible modes for this stick - there are switches on the front for "PC / MD", and "Digital / Analog", as well as a switch on the back labelled "Shift SW - on / off".

I don't think it makes sense to emulate any of them, except the Analog mode - which for the PC Engine requires for it to be set as:
1) PC (not MD - MD appears to emulate Megadrive D-pad controllers on the 9-bit output)
2) Analog (not Digital)
3) Shift SW = Off (it's not clear what this does, but PC Engine games don't recognize the controller if this is set to On)

While I don't have a Cyberstick, I have seen various documents indicating that it works the same as the XE-1AP in Analog mode.
Here is an example (Japanese):
https://nicotakuya.hatenablog.com/entry ... /11/163651

[sonik]

There's manual scans here (in japanese)
https://imgur.com/gallery/uD6vN

"We see a shift switch that makes the left analog work like flight controls or like a normal joystick."
No idea what this means.

[dshadoff]

There's manual scans here (in japanese)
https://imgur.com/gallery/uD6vN

"We see a shift switch that makes the left analog work like flight controls or like a normal joystick."
No idea what this means.

Based on those scans, it seems that among the three analog axes (x, y, throttle), it rearranges their usages.

[Megahurtz]

There's manual scans here (in japanese)
https://imgur.com/gallery/uD6vN

"We see a shift switch that makes the left analog work like flight controls or like a normal joystick."
No idea what this means.

Just a guess, but maybe it inverts the Y axis to allow you to use flight controls with games that didn’t have a built in option for inverted up/down.

[dshadoff]

Just a guess, but maybe it inverts the Y axis to allow you to use flight controls with games that didn’t have a built in option for inverted up/down.

No - it actually switches all three of the analog axes' purposes:

The throttle control becomes the X-axis
The Y-axis on the stick becomes the throttle
The X-axis on the stick becomes the Y-axis

[dshadoff]

Pull request submitted (for PC Engine support).
The XE1AP module should easily be used with other cores which might support it (for developers familiar with those cores).
Apparently, there were a small number of games on Megadrive, MegaCD, 32X, MSX, X68000, and FM Towns Marty which used this (I think computers may have supported it more than consoles).

[Sparkoids]

This is a great controller and I requested with Analogue to add compatibility to their Mega SG console but they haven't bothered so far. Would be great on the Mister...