Atari 2600 and Paddle Controller

[Schlamassel99]

Hello.
How can i configuration an original paddle controller with usb adapter on the atari 2600 core?
Can you help me with a little tutorial ?

[FPGA64]

you need the Atari Snac adaptor and a ADC board on the mister. You plug the Snac adaptor into the "Not" Usb port on the IO board and connect the cable between the Snac adaptor and the ADC input.

Its fairly easy but not exactly simple.

[thorr]

you need the Atari Snac adaptor and a ADC board on the mister. You plug the Snac adaptor into the "Not" Usb port on the IO board and connect the cable between the Snac adaptor and the ADC input.

Its fairly easy but not exactly simple.

Is this available in the regular core now? I have been using an old core with SNAC capabilities that is separate from the main 2600 core.

[Schlamassel99]

I have the analog board with the "not" usb port. I ordered the adapter. But how exactly do I configure the atari 2600 snac core to make the atari paddle controller work. What do I have to set? Or does it detect the paddle automatically?

Thank you very much for your help.

[FPGA64]

If the core supports Snac it should be automatic or by turning on an option in the core.

[annette]

I did not check recently but I do not think official atari 2600 project core has SNAC support, this is the atari 2600 core I have used with SNAC.

Atari2600_SNAC_20200726.rbf

Unofficial Atari 2600 core with SNAC support

(2.83 MiB) Downloaded 540 times

[ElMariachi003]

Hi - has anyone tried this with the Blisster? I had no problem configuring one of my joysticks with the LLAPI version of the 7800 core, but the paddle? I can’t get neither MiSTer nor the core (when I enable LLAPI) to recognize neither paddles nor the buttons on the paddle controller.

FWIW, the paddles do work on my 2600 console.

UPDATE: Well, I finally got it working, but the paddle position in all games tested only goes from the far right to just left of center... Any way to calibrate the travel? I couldn't find anything in the menu.

UPDATE #2: Well, after setting the controller type back to "Auto" (I had specifically set it to "Paddle"), hitting the P1 reset button on the Blisster, and then pressing the button on the paddle, it not only detected the paddle as expected, but also has full travel now! So, leaving this here in case anyone else has this problem.

[ghorricks]

I am raising this one again as the Atari2600+ was released and paddle options are not great for MiSTer, so I bought the £30 official ones with 4 games from Amazon UK.

When they arrived and didnt work with my 3in1 Daemonbite, I got the SNAC adapter and 3.5mm cable to go to the ADC.
Still didnt work until I used the correct OLDER 2600 Core with SNAC (2020 07 26 - which is 3.5 years old at the time of writing this post).
Who is maintaining the 7800 Core with 2600 Support, and shouldnt they be told of the issue and working older core???

Finally, the range of motion on the older core isnt correct as the paddle is sensitive and quickly goes from one side to another but with lots of paddle twisting remaining...

I'd love to understand more and contribute but at this time, I can only perform QA on what we have available.

[LamerDeluxe]

Kitrinx develops the 7800/2600 and if I'm not misremembering, wasn't interesting in adding SNAC paddle support.

Support for the Daptor D9 and PDL (recommended to avoid grounding related jitter) is fantastic in that core and works with up to four paddles.

[thorr]

SNAC support would be awesome and I would jump for joy. The only drawback would be it would be limited to one set of paddles, but that is fine with me. I prefer the 7800 core with the D9 over the old 2600 core with SNAC because I think the image on the screen looks better on the 7800 core from what I recall. I have beat the SNAC horse to death though so I stopped advocating for it for the most part. Maybe someday I can learn how to implement it myself and share an RBF even if it is not official, but I doubt it.

[virtuali]

I raised the issue on Github, the problem is that SNAC support works in the 7800/2600 core (Paddle button works), but ADC doesn't.

I can use the 2600+ Paddles with SNAC and ADC working, with a specific SNAC-enabled version of the 2600 core:

viewtopic.php?p=35889#p35889

[zachcollier]

Does anyone have experience with the Reflex Adapt and the Atari Paddle controller?

I have Atari joysticks working fine with the "Genesis" cable/adaptor, and the Reflex Adapt sees the paddle buttons as "left" and "right" on the joystick input, which makes sense because those are the same pins, but I don't see any indication that the potentiometers are being read.

[Lightwave]

Does anyone have experience with the Reflex Adapt and the Atari Paddle controller?

I have Atari joysticks working fine with the "Genesis" cable/adaptor, and the Reflex Adapt sees the paddle buttons as "left" and "right" on the joystick input, which makes sense because those are the same pins, but I don't see any indication that the potentiometers are being read.

Adapt doesn't support 2600 paddles, unfortunately.

[zachcollier]

Adapt doesn't support 2600 paddles, unfortunately.

That seemed to be the case. No big deal! I’ll find another way to play.

Thank you for confirming!

[Lightwave]

Adapt doesn't support 2600 paddles, unfortunately.

That seemed to be the case. No big deal! I’ll find another way to play.

Thank you for confirming!

I can recommend the 2600daptor PDL mentioned above, also the Retrofi (Atari paddle version) here looks promising, as it can be used wired or wirelessly:

https://brunofreitas.myshopify.com/prod ... 9939975411

[pashdown]

The icode adapter works fairly well: https://www.ebay.com/itm/284281643607 . It does not support the driving controller with MiSTer. I haven't found anything that does.
It should also be noted that the official way is the MiSTer Spinner: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Retro-C ... /README.md

[LamerDeluxe]

The icode adapter works fairly well: https://www.ebay.com/itm/284281643607 . It does not support the driving controller with MiSTer. I haven't found anything that does.
It should also be noted that the official way is the MiSTer Spinner: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Retro-C ... /README.md

The Daptor PDL also supports driving controllers.

[rhester72]

The Daptor PDL also supports driving controllers.

But the core doesn't, does it?

[LamerDeluxe]

The Daptor PDL also supports driving controllers.

But the core doesn't, does it?

That could very well be the case. It looks like the controller just uses the joystick pins (up, down, fire, ground), but I wonder if the decoding was done in hardware or software. Because if it was the latter, you'd expect it to just work.
https://www.atariage.com/2600/archives/ ... s_Low.html

[Lightwave]

The Daptor PDL also supports driving controllers.

But the core doesn't, does it?

That could very well be the case. It looks like the controller just uses the joystick pins (up, down, fire, ground), but I wonder if the decoding was done in hardware or software. Because if it was the latter, you'd expect it to just work.
https://www.atariage.com/2600/archives/ ... s_Low.html

Kitrinx was planning to add driving controller support via adapter at some point, there was some back and forth with the creator of the 2600Daptor at the same time as the paddle stuff was being figured out.

[LamerDeluxe]

But the core doesn't, does it?

That could very well be the case. It looks like the controller just uses the joystick pins (up, down, fire, ground), but I wonder if the decoding was done in hardware or software. Because if it was the latter, you'd expect it to just work.
https://www.atariage.com/2600/archives/ ... s_Low.html

Kitrinx was planning to add driving controller support via adapter at some point, there was some back and forth with the creator of the 2600Daptor at the same time as the paddle stuff was being figured out.

Ah, okay, then I guess the decoding did take place in hardware in the 2600.

[pashdown]

Just discovered recently that the driving controller works with SNAC. However, it is somewhat useless in that Indy 500 needs two controllers and the SNAC port only supports one.

[garrett]

I have the Atari snac, the adc board all hooked up with a stereo 3.5mm. switch is set to paddle. I used the core above that says its for 2600 with paddle. I set it to snac and to ADC yes in the core options.

No movement in the paddle. The fire button works.

Any ideas? Anything I need to do to setup the ADC board?