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Hardware Hacking Classic Games (Games) Emulation (Games) NES (Games) Entertainment Games

When Emulation Isn't Enough 207

Posted by timothy from the fool-your-enemies dept.
oldskoolar writes "For those of you who find emulation of your favorite Nintendo games disconcerting with a keyboard interface, Joystiq may have just the project you've been looking for. For those of you with more time than most people have ambition; why not couple this hack with an older mod."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

When Emulation Isn't Enough More

When Emulation Isn't Enough

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  • Other Controllers (Score:5, Informative)

    by Emrikol ( 21551 ) * <emrikol@decarbon[ ]d.org ['ate' in gap]> on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:05AM (#10190202) Homepage
    I've always liked using PlayStation Controllers for my emulators. Radioshack has a really cheap (sub $15) converter that goes from PlayStation > USB

    • Re:Other Controllers (Score:3, Informative)

      by Emrikol ( 21551 ) *
      Oh... here it is [radioshack.com] for $10.49
      Ripped from site:
      A must-have for serious PSX gamers! This RadioShack PSX-to-USB Game Adapter allows you to use your PlayStation game controller on your USB-equipped PC. Built-in vibration feedback driver lets you feel special effects in the game.

      PRODUCT FEATURES:
      Meets USB 1.1 requirements
      No batteries required
      Compatible with Direct-X
      Windows XP/2000/ME/98SE/98 compatible

    • Does it work with dance pads, for playing StepMania? [stepmania.com]

      • Re:Other Controllers (Score:2, Informative)

        by drumist ( 589197 )
        This actually illustrates a limitation of the regular controller. In most games, it makes no sense to press left AND right at the same time, but it is used all the time in Dance Dance Revolution. Some PSX -> USB converters will map the directional arrows to a two-axis grid (i.e., X-axis and Y-axis). (There are a few variations of this.) Some will map the directional arrows to four independent "buttons" (one for each direction). You need one that uses the latter method for games such as DDR to work
        • Old trick i used in Final Fantasy 2 I found out that if you hold left and right at the same time your characters would walk back and forth getting attacted by things in the area. Once I got to a high enough level I could use this to get items in diffrent areas but cracking open a controller, tapeing down left right and I think it was "A" button. this way I could leave it on all day at school or all night while I slept and see what new and cool items I found the next morning. the Admantium armor I remembe
    • Do they have them to convert Gamecube controllers? I've always liked them more.
    • I'll have to pick one of those up. I've been using a $20 Gamepad Pro from Gravis that's been okay, except it's REALLY easy to accidentally hit the diagonals. I really do like the 4-way D-pad much better for NES and SNES emulation, otherwise I end up getting frustrated when my finger isn't dead center and I go in some oddball direction.
      • I picked a Gamepad Pro up a few years back, and I've had the exact same problem, both in Windows (98 and XP) and Linux. I've noticed it's more likely to hit the diagonals when I'm using the X-axis than the Y-axis, but that may just be the way my thumb hits it.

        Still, it's a nice controller, and more comfortable than the old NES one.

        If I were going to go for a controller adapter, I'd have to pick the PS2.
      • Not sure what model it is (in the other room, don't want to get up and walk) but I have a gravis game pad that has the same problem, but there is a small button in the middle with a green LED that toggles the controller between analog 8 way direction and a standard, non-analog 4-way d-pad.
        I've always found the pad to be pretty nice, though it's a little on the bulky side.
    • http://www.blackchopper.com/ [blackchopper.com] has an modular adapter that allows the use of PSX, NES, SNES, and Genesis controllers on one device. Each of the different "cable types" have an adapter that plugs in.

      If you still like using PSX controllers, you can easily switch to NES controllers every once in a while... ... and unlike the other PSX->USB type converters sold, this one is made in the USA. ;)
    • You can get a four-controller version off of ebay for about the same price. I've got one and I love it.
  • Looks like you can get a NES dirt cheap [ebay.com] on ebay.
    • From the article:
      The NES made its debut in the USA in 1986 sporting two flavors--Arcade ($199) and Deluxe ($249). Arcade included Super Mario Bros. and the deluxe included ROB the robot and a zapper gun. Over 70 million units were sold worldwide, so for this reason a lot of this hardware is still laying around just waiting to be hacked up.

      So yeah, with over 70 million sold I imagine a few people still have one laying around.
      • I'm sure I'm not the only one on Slashdot who buys up every vintage console he sees at garage sales and thrift stores... And I can tell you that finding a working NES is not all that easy, even on eBay (where they sell for $25-$50 and have no guarantees.) They just weren't built to last 15-20 years, especially with the abuse most kids inlficted on them. Atari 2600, though-- those things will last forever. Probably because they're so damn simple. Of course finding a paddle controller that doesn't have
        • Pff.... NES systems didn't work in the 80s, why would they work now. Coming from Japan, the country with the highest quality of engineering in the world, NES is considered a financial success but engineering disaster. How many times did people blow into the cartridge slots just 1 year after system purchase. The flashing white screen was an eye killer.

    • Re:people still have those things? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Andorion ( 526481 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:08AM (#10190280)
      But will it work without having to blow in the cartridge, click it up and down three times while pushing it all the way in (or barely in, scraping the front) and holding/cycling the power/reset buttons?

      ~Berj
      • hehe, probably not. I forgot about all of that fun. It was like its own game that came free with the system! You just don't get that kind of entertainment with modern gaming systems.
      • Bah, everyone knows you need two games, one to play, and one to put in on top of the other game to hold it down ALL the way. It's like up up down down left right left right b a b a {select} start. You can tell who had friends as a kid by who tells you the code had a select in it.

      • I remember playing the original TMNT game in NES, and wondering why it had vertical lines in all the screens. Then I tried removing and reinserting the cartridge, and the lines vanished. Thinking back about it, it's actually pretty amazing - the whole thing worked perfectly (besides the graphics corruption) with corrupted data resulting from faulty connections.

        Coming to think about it, TMNT was actually a pretty good game. It had an overhead map, where you moved the turtles to from dungeon (sewer or build

        • ...the whole thing worked perfectly (besides the graphics corruption) with corrupted data resulting from faulty connections.

          Am I the only person who "hacked" Atari 2600 games by fiddling with the carts during power-on? I occasionally got weird glitches that either affected collision detection (no crashes in Enduro) or gave me multiple "ghost" shots or ships (Asteroids maybe?)

          GTRacer
          - Atari Defender pwned me!

        • I could never get past the airport in that game, even with a walkthrough and Game Genie. It was HARD. I think the lack of save was part of the problem, as I simply never had the time needed to do everything in one go.
      • I taught my son how to do that. He does it every time he wants to play the Genesis or N64. It gives him something to do before he plays the video game.

        Ah yeah, well if he is good enough until his birthday I might buy him an XBox with those emulator disks for Genesis, SNES, NES, SMS, N64, PSX, and MAME. After I hack the XBox to a 120Gig hard drive and Xenium chip. ;)

      • Re:people still have those things? (Score:5, Informative)

        by barawn ( 25691 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @12:13PM (#10191333) Homepage
        Yah, you just need to know how to fix them. The problem is caused by the contacts corroding on the connector, coupled with the fact that there's nothing that "fixes" the insertion to a specific point, and the fact that the contacts themselves (being contact springs) wear over time and become less "springy" as they permanently deform.

        Just take the thing apart, use a lot of rubbing alcohol with a q-tip, and if you can, pry up the contacts to restore their original shape. Then it'll work just as good as new. If you can't fix the connector, you can also put alcohol on the cartridge connector, insert it, remove it, lather, rinse, repeat about 10 times or so. Then try to find an orientation that makes it work, and mark that orientation with a Sharpie on the inside of the NES. Takes five seconds. But fixing the original connector is best. :)

        NES's are much more likely to survive long-term than the newer disc-based systems - no moving parts. I'd like to see emulation focus on Saturns, PlayStations, etc. rather than the NES. Those systems will die much faster.

        (I'd also like to see someone take apart one of the battery-backed cartridges and write up instructions on how to replace the battery. Those'll die eventually too...)

        • On maintaining old NES gear (Score:5, Informative)

          by freeweed ( 309734 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @01:07PM (#10192097)
          Heh. The thread aimed squarely at me :)

          Console/games - surprisingly, the console itself is rarely the problem, and there's not a lot you can do to fix it if it is. Usually, it's the cartridges themselves. A LOT of corrosion can build up on these things in 15-20 years. Easy fix: soak a Q-tip in isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, and scrub the hell out of the cartridge contacts. Do it on BOTH sides of the cart, of course. There's just enough room in an NES cart to be able to do this without opening it. Opening the console and trying to fix the cart connector on the mainboard is not only tricky, but usually pointless. I've salvaged over 100 NES consoles in the past 5 years, and not one has had a single problem there. There is still someone out there who sells replacement cartridge connectors, but I can't say as that's a soldering job I'd want to volunteer for. Anyway, follow the steps above, repeat as necessary (some carts are VERY dirty - it's common to make the Q-tip black). I've managed to get pretty much every cart I have (1000+) work on every console I've ever tried using this method. Blowing, shaking, moving side-to-side, putting weight on it - all of these only temporarily help the cartridges make contact. Clean 'em up good, and you'll never have to play these games again!

          Batteries - every NES cart that I've seen uses a CR2032 cell battery. These things can be found for free everywhere, most notably on modern PC motherboards (BIOS settings backup). Find a dead motherboard that's not too old and its battery will have years of life left. In an NES game, they lasted anywhere from 5-20 years, depending on use and storage. I still have a Zelda cart with save games on it from at least 10 years ago, whereas some carts died within a few years of purchase. At this point, nearly all of the battery-backed games are dead. Now, replacing these things is a real bitch. Nintendo (mostly) used these idiotic security screws on their cartridges, which means most people can't open them easily. If you're lucky (some Zeldas were made this way) it's just a Phillips (star) head. Otherwise, you'll need a special bit to open them (or an awful lot of persistence). Once open of course, you can replace with whatever easy to use screw you like.

          The batteries themselves were set into a socket on the game PCB, and a metal clip folded over top. The problem is, this clip was spot-welded (or something similar) to the battery, making it very tricky to remove without damaging the clip. With patience however, and some gentle hands, you can. A replacement battery just slips in. Here comes the tricky part - that metal clip doesn't hold too tightly to the battery now. Soldering the clip to the battery is a very dangerous operation - the heat from your iron can kill the battery. I've seen replacement battery harnesses for sale in the past, you'd just have to solder these into the PCB of the game and your battery clips in nicely.

          And yeah, I'd have to agree 110% with your comment about CD-based systems. I have pretty much every pre-CD system still in perfect working condition here. It takes a LOT to kill a cartridge-based machine, usually fire or water or both :) But over half the Playstations I come across are already toast. Give it another 10 years and very few will even work, yet the 2600s/NESs/Genesii will keep chugging away.

      • I think the parent post has a making for a /. poll:
        Best way to get a NES cartridge to work:
        1. blow in the cartridge
        2. click it up and down.
        3. Cycling power buttons(not recommended for games with batteries though, esp. DW 3)
        4. Moving it back and forth horizontally.
        5. Get Cowboy Neal to come over and fix it.
      • My little sister pulled out my old Nintendo at the beginning of the summer, and spent most of the time doing just that. It's hard to believe what we put up with just to save that damn princess again.

        Sadly, I think her drive to play came more out of her extremely conformist nature (she saw the "Know Your Roots" [computergear.com] shirts and decided she had to play Nintendo to be cool) instead of an actual appreciation of the system. :/

  • My keyboard isn't broken, why fix it? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by UnholySauce ( 799890 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:07AM (#10190246) Homepage
    Am I the only one who prefers a keyboard to console-style controllers/gamepads? I've used computers far more than consoles, and I find keyboard controls to be far more precise and accessible. For one, you have far more buttons and aren't locked into whatever button scheme the game system design forces you into. You can also use all your fingers instead of just thumbs (and index fingers for shoulder buttons). The only advantage consoles really have are analog sticks, but even those can be less precise than the good ol' numpad (or wasd) depending on the game.

  • Dualshock (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ignignot ( 782335 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:07AM (#10190251) Journal
    Personally I bought a dualshock controller (I don't even own a playstation) and an adapter for use with older games. The controller is perfect for super nintendo because it has basically the same layout, and it works in a pinch for any other game as well. I use it with battlefield 1942 and racing games. The adapter was only 4 bucks, and as I may eventually buy a PS/2 to play dvd's and video games, the controller was a good buy as well (but it was expensive).

    • Re:Dualshock (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jagasian ( 129329 )
      The PS2 controller's D-pad is crap compared to the SNES controller's D-pad.
      • Good point. When the playstation originally came out, I thought it was great - with the exception of the crappy D-pad. The four disconnected buttons were just a pain in the ass to use. I probably would have bought a playstation were it not for the controller.

        I don't have a PS2, but IIRC it still has the same lousy excuse for a d-pad. Why?

        • Re:Dualshock (Score:5, Informative)

          by Jagasian ( 129329 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @04:53PM (#10195108)
          Nintendo got a patent on their D-pad design. It has a nice balance of being able to hit "pure" directions (left, right, up, down) and diagonal directions ( down-left, up-left, down-right, up-right ). Most other D-pads make it too difficult to hit the diagonals, such as the Playstation family, and others make it far too easy to accidentally hit the diagonals, such as the XBOX.

          Don't get me wrong, I am not a Nintendo fanboy... I don't own a Gamecube. In fact, I don't like the idea that Nintendo got a patent on a D-pad design. However, I calls it likes I sees it: Nintendo's directional-pad is and always has been the best.
          • Ah. That explains why nobody else can make a decent pad. I assumed they were just trying to be "different."

            Maybe Nintendo shouldn't have gotten a patent, or maybe they should have - I've never heard an argument either way. Regardless, once they got a patent then nobody should be able to copy it...for a few years.

            What's the lifespan of a patent now? 100 years or something? Ridiculous. Outrageous and unnecessary patents have a lot of visibility, but the more serious problem is the excessive lifespan of

  • Can be bought here [sealiecomputing.com], among other places. Slightly expensive, but I suppose it might be worth it to some people that don't want to do the work themselves.

    I don't work for the linked site, nor have I bought any of their products yet, though, so I can't speak to the quality.

  • I have a gravis (Score:3, Informative)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:16AM (#10190402) Journal
    The layout is just like a supernintendo controller, and only cost me 10$ That adapter change over looks like work to me. www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA

  • Powerglove... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john.lamar@NospaM.gmail.com> on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:20AM (#10190465) Homepage Journal
    I wish I still had the book, there was source code with it (maybe it's around here somewhere)...

    This type of thing has already been done [geocities.com] with the Nintendo Powerglove [geocities.com]. In fact to the point where serial interfaces are available for purchase [teglerizer.com].

    Another link:
    Wireless Glove Project [geocities.com]

  • SNES Controller (Score:4, Informative)

    by eingram ( 633624 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:23AM (#10190511)
    Someone posted this [everything2.com] in another story a while back. It's a guide to convert a SNES controller to work on a PC. Although it'd be easier to just buy a converter for it (although not near as geeky). Is there a company that sells a converter for it?

    I'd really like a Gamecube -> USB converter myself (or Dreamcast). Both of those controllers are the most comfortable I've ever held!
    • I'd really like a Gamecube -> USB converter myself (or Dreamcast). Both of those controllers are the most comfortable I've ever held!

      You may want to check out THIS [gocybershop.ca] then. I bought one a few months ago and it works flawlessly with both my desktop(PC) and my iBook.
    • Adapter Here [lik-sang.com].
    • you could just use the dreamcast controller on your dreamcast running NesterDC [dcemulation.com] - there's also a genesis emulator out there somewhere. I like running them on my dreamcast since it still gives you the console feel even though running and emulator on it.
    • Personally I hated the Dreamcast controller (but loved the console). It always felt like you had to rotate your wrists out too far. Still, the LCD memory unit was hella cool, although underused.
  • I made an adapter for my SNES controller that hooks up to the parallel port. The parallel port method seems much easier, any idiot with a soldering iron could make it. I can't find the diagram for the one I made, but this [archive.org] is similar. I don't understand why you would make a NES controller adapter, the SNES controller is almost exactly the same with the added benefit of being able to play SNES games.
  • It seems like a generic analogue to USB interface, which is exactly what I've been looking for. Anyone have any idea what the actual controlling chip is (neither site gives specs, just shows a blury picture)?

  • Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:36AM (#10190711) Journal
    Emulation isn't the same.

    I'd rather spend my efforts maintaining my REAL vintage gaming stuff.

    Ripping apart one of my dogbone NES controllers to hack on a USB dongle is sacrelige.

    • Re:Sigh (Score:2, Interesting)

      by rincebrain ( 776480 )
      Just find A) a broken cheap NES on eBay or locally, or B) a cheap NES extension cord.

      Hack it apart, pull out the NES controller in port.

      Throw the USB device on the end.

  • Timing.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by slycer ( 161341 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:41AM (#10190823) Homepage
    I just finished doing the same thing to my SNES controller..

    The benifit of the SNES is that you don't need to mangle anything, no wires get cut, and you can get away without soldering too.. In otherwords, it would take me about 5 minutes to connect the pad I used back to the real SNES, if I so desired.

    Having said that, I am going to go the soldering route - then I should be able to get the casing for the controller back on (it's currently dangling on the cord), and if my wife gets pissed off because I'm kicking her ass in Battle Dodgeball 2 and throws the controller at me again, it won't come out of the connector ;)

  • I have nothing to back this up (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheRealMindChild ( 743925 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:44AM (#10190896) Homepage Journal
    ... but I remember back when Nesticle was first released, and I was an aspiring programmer, still in high school, hanging out in #emu on EFnet... someone had taken apart an NES controller, wired it up to the game port and it just worked. No resistors. No chips.

    Going through my really tore up CD-r that is approaching EONS old, I see that in some cases you would need to sauder a single resistor between two points, but you only did this if it didnt work for you for some odd reason. There was only one person in the channel that needed to do this.
    • Hahaha! I remember that (I was an op on the channel at the time, I think)

      Although I stick with the dualshock these days.
    • And they were lying. See here. [gamesx.com] An NES controller, being a digital controller, gives you 4 signals for direction: UP, DOWN, LEFT, and RIGHT. That's it. A PC gameport has two pins for direction: X-AXIS, and Y-AXIS. Both take analog signals, and the strengths of these are what determines which direction you're going in.

      Every console pad to gamepad/parallel pad conversion uses diodes for a reason.
      • I have the controller I modified, the experience using it to tell you it worked great, and the original MS Paint made schematics.
      • They must have been either lying, or talking about another controller entirely (SNES, maybe? Never had one of those).

        The NES controller is actually quite simple, but more complicated than your assumption.

        The four directions, start, reset, A and B buttons make up eight bits. If you push a button, it grounds an input on an 8-bit parallel-to-serial shift register (CMOS part 4016 IIRC.. 4xxx series, anyhow). These input are read as high when floating.

        The four lines coming from the NES are serial in, clock ou
    • You could hook up the controller to the parallel port, not the game port, and have it work without extra hardware. You would need extra software drivers to implement the serial-style method for reading the controller. Some emulators had that feature built-in. The linux kernel includes drivers as well.

      For some parallel ports that didn't source enough current on a single pin, you would need to wire up a few pins for power, which required some diodes.
    • GAmeports are getting fairly rare these days. Generally they were a part of the soundcard, but cards like the Audigy 2 have so many plugs there's just not room for them. Combine that with the fact that USB allows for more controllers, and for better support for controller features and the gameport is pretty much a dead technology. Hence, USB conversion is a useful proposition.
  • Like so many here, I've long since converted to using my PSX-Dual Shock controller with the Radio Shack USB converter, but that's hardly the point.

    We've started seeing various self-contained video game systems, such as the Atari 2600-in-a-joystick (and also Intellivision, Sega Genesis, and some arcade games) hit the legal market, but when are we going to see a NES-in-a-NESpad (and not a NES-in-a-three-handed-N64 controller)? Or, even better, SNES-in-a-SNESpad? That's the sort of hack I was hoping this wa

  • original recipe (Score:3, Funny)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:51AM (#10190997) Homepage Journal
    I've got one of those $20 Atari joysticks that are bundled with a dozen original Atari games, and audio/video out cables. Where's the hacks to get Linux installed?

  • tremon controller (Score:2, Informative)

    by i621148 ( 728860 )
    i liked the old skool "Max" controller which had turbo for pumping millions of rounds of laser bolts into gradius style enemies.
    i am pretty happy with two of these for multi-player enemy slaying...
    tremon usb controller [ebay.com] $0.99

    these work with turbo for the following emulators:
    atari/ 11-Aug-2004 08:50
    gameboy_advance/ 29-Nov-2003 11:04
    n64/ 11-Aug-2004 08:51
    nes/ 07-May-2004 21:22
    sega/ 29-Apr-2004 10:32
    snes/

  • Uh...Parts error (Score:4, Informative)

    by BearJ ( 783382 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @11:59AM (#10191123)
    Just a bit of a nitpick, but in the article they mention the PIC16c74 as the chip being used. That would be rather impossible...the 16c74 has 40 pins and doesn't do USB. They're most likely using the PIC16c745. Both are manufactured by Microchip Technologies [microchip.com] based out of Chandler, Arizona.

  • Seems like overkill to me.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by k98sven ( 324383 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @12:33PM (#10191640) Journal
    There are simpler ways.. like this parallel port interface [geocities.com] (page is SNES, but the same design works for NES controllers too)

    I've personally built several of these interfaces, and they work just fine, with one caveat: depending on your parallel port you might want to put a transistor in there, like in this design [members.shaw.ca]. I haven't had any problems with the latter design with any parallel port type, although you might need to change resistor. (or just skip it altogether)

    (Yes, there are drivers for Linux, Win95/98/Me and 2000/XP)
  • Over the summer I took two N64 controllers and two PS2 controllers and used the parts to make two N64 controllers that hook up to a PS2. Now, I don't have a PS2 but I do have four PSX-to-USB adaptors from RatShack ($11.50 each). This way I can play emulated N64 games with real N64 controllers. Also good for GameBoy, SNES and NES emulation. I'm planning on writing a how-to webpage. (Note: There'll be no "kit." I don't use any custom parts other than what you get in the N64 and PS2 controllers.)
  • See: /usr/src/linux/Documentation/input/joystick-parpor t.txt

    It's very easy to hook a number of controllers up to the parallel port. I've hooked up five SNES controllers in this manner.
  • Is it possible to modify this hack to make NES controllers work with the XBOX? The XBOX controller ports are USB, but regular USB game pads do not work when plugged into the XBOX (via a USB to XBOX adapter).

  • can be done cheaper (Score:2, Informative)

    by z33k03 ( 748079 )
    PPJoy [geocities.com] is cheaper, can be made with spare parts, and works real nice. Supports all kinds of weird joysticks/gamepads.
  • Does anyone know of any hacks/projects/products for hooking a gamepad of some sort to a PocketPC?

    I've been looking at the Tapwave Zodiac [tapwave.com] for some time, but the current development environment is fairly hostile to hobby developers which is where most emulation dev work occurs... Before I get flamed by the Tapwave faithful let me explain: 1) although it is possible to use an open source tool chain, it is pretty difficult to get everything working together (Tapwave targeted Code Warrior because at the time t

  • So... how do I take my existing NES cartridges and rip the ROM from them for legal emulation goodness? No matter how you slice it, downloading the ROMs from the internet is against the law (in the US at least), whether you own the cartridges or not. I'd like to rip my cartridges before they die completely.

  • more hype for Engadget from Slashdot (Score:3, Informative)

    by SethJohnson ( 112166 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @02:58PM (#10193664) Homepage Journal


    Damn. It seems like a day doesn't go by without Slashdot linking to some engadget article. Yesterday the Engadget Senior Editor admitted [slashdot.org] that he's been submitting Articles on Slashdot without a disclaimer saying 'hey, I'm from Engadget. Here's my story over at my site.' Interestingly, he never posts with his slashdot account [slashdot.org], but keeps getting his self-hyping article submissions accepted.

    Now here's this article posted on Slashdot referencing a child-site of Endadget called joystiq. Engadget and Joystiq are part of the "Weblogs, Inc. Network [weblogsinc.com]"

    I tried to check the submitter's slashdot account. Doesn't exist [slashdot.org]. Why would Timothy use this nickname (oldskoolar) to attribute the submission when it doesn't exist? Now slashdot is not only running promo articles for engadget sites, it's pretending that they're submitted by users who don't exist.

    I'd bet that the folks at WIN are paying slashdot to run these promos to drive traffic to their pseudo-blog sites.

  • Adaptoid (Nintendo64-to-USB adapter) (Score:3, Informative)

    by dan_bethe ( 134253 ) <[slashdot] [at] [smuckola.org]> on Wednesday September 08, 2004 @03:19PM (#10193950)
    I strongly prefer the N64 controller and hence Adaptoid [adaptoid.com]. If you have Windows, their driver adapts RumblePak to DirectX Force Feedback, and can read/write memory card data. Otherwise, it's a generic USB HID and so you can use it as a keyboard or mouse. Also, N64's controller is physically backward compatible with SNES and NES. I never finished adapting it to Q3A, but I did all my emulation with it on MacOS 9 and 10.

  • go completely custom (Score:2, Insightful)

    by yuktar ( 178244 )
    If you're using this equipment to play emulator games, chances are that you downloaded them off the internet and they're illegal. Shame on you! Why not get some good homebrew games or, better yet, make your own games? [bobrost.com]
  • I'm surprised nobody mentioned the homebrew SNESKey adaptor [emulationworld.com] yet. This allows you to hook a wide variety of game controllers (including NES, SNES and some Atari/Genesis controllers) to your computer's parallel port (remember when computers had those?). There was even a DOS program you could run your old-school DOS emulators under, which messed with some interrupt vectors so that it would trap control pad activity on the LPT port and translate it directly to keyboard presses (so it would work with pretty much

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Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design would be accurate. -- K.E. Iverson

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