Wiring A Sega Genesis Controller To Jamma Test Station

[mjenison]

Excellent. Thanks! I just looked, and the -15V is just regulated to -5V anyhow. Good to know that +12 should work in place of the +15. I'll hook it up and see what I get!

One more question about your test set-up: Is anything necessary to convert the video signal for the PSOne display?

I don't think I needed to do anything special. You should be able to find some info online about this.

 

[Thomas]

Hey guys what do I need to do so the third button will work? We have been playing mortal kombat with the B and C button. It sure does suck without the A button no kicking.

I guess I will take one apart and add some pics here to get this worked / wired out correctly.

 

[Thomas]

Here are some shots of the board... I am sure the numbers on the parts side match the scat but I will reconfirm with my mm.

http://pinouts.ru/Game/sega_ms_joy_pinout.shtml
http://pinouts.ru/Game/genesiscontroller_pinout.shtml

 

[Thomas]

I made up a little map aid. DogP how would you go about getting the 3rd button and the start button to work on the controller?

Yeah, definitely stay with the 3 button controller, because of backward compatibility that the 6 button may not have... but using this pinout you actually only get two buttons. To get the third and start button, you need to toggle the select pin and demux/register that pin.

It's not worth it IMO, though if you want to modify the controller, you could wire +5 and Select to the third and start buttons. I personally connected switches for coin and start directly on my test station and use bone stock Genesis controllers

DogP

Okay so I am confused.. What do I need to do?

To get the third and start button, you need to toggle the select pin and demux/register that pin.

Huh? English please... lol

(+5 and select to pin 7) then (+5 and start to pin 5)

Would this be correct above?

1 Up
2 Down
3 Left
4 Right
5 N/C
6 Button 1
7 N/C
8 GND
9 Button 2

 

[RetroHacker]

I just desoldered the chip in the controller and added jumper wires. That way I could have all three buttons. I did not wire up the Start button, it does nothing.

-Ian

 

[Sectorseven]

I take it the Sega Saturn controller would have to be hacked too?

 

[RetroHacker]

I take it the Sega Saturn controller would have to be hacked too?

Most definitely - especially because you're never going to find a plug to mate with the connector at the end of the cable, short of taking apart a Saturn.

At least with the Genesis, it's fairly easy to build a circuit to decode the controller. But the Saturn controller is different, and more complicated.

The Master System controller is really simple - it has no chips in it. But it only has two buttons. The Genesis controller is backwards compatible, and works on the Master System, and thus also works as the simple bunch of switches. But to use the extra buttons on a Genesis controller, you need decoding logic.

-Ian

 

[Thomas]

Now it's more understandable!

http://dawgslair.com/joypad/joypad%20hack.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20040430112715/http://dawgslair.com/joypad/joypad hack.html

Desolder the chip and resistors then add jumpers.

Chip pinout
----
08-07-06-05-04-03-02-01
16-15-14-13-12-11-10-09

Now jump the following holes
-----
03<-->04
06<-->07
09<-->12
14<-->16
01<-->11
15<-->13

Results
----
1- Up
2- Down
3- Left
4- Right
5- Button C
6- Button A
7- Select
8- Ground
9- Button B

 

[Thomas]

Getting closer and man if I only had some skills...

 

[DogP]

Heh, you didn't need to do that, but now that you did, I guess you know what you need to do. To get the other buttons, you could have just left it as it was, but cut wires 5 and 7 and connected them to Start and A switches.

DogP

 

[Thomas]

Well damn...

 

[EagleTG]

I just completed one of these. Decided to hack for all 3 buttons + Start.

All pins on the controller are essentially as-per Sega Genesis spec except for the +5 (pin 5) and Select (Pin 7) which I reused for buttons B and C respectively.

Pin reference:

Pin 1 - Up - JAMMA 18
Pin 2 - Down - JAMMA 19
Pin 3 - Left - JAMMA 20
Pin 4 - Right- JAMMA 21
Pin 5 - Button B - JAMMA 23
Pin 6 - Button A - JAMMA 22
Pin 7 - Button C - JAMMA 24
Pin 8 - Ground - JAMMA 1 (or any other ground)
Pin 9 - Start- JAMMA 17

 

[DogP]

I just completed one of these. Decided to hack for all 3 buttons + Start.

All pins on the controller are essentially as-per Sega Genesis spec except for the +5 (pin 5) and Select (Pin 7) which I reused for buttons B and C respectively.

Pin reference:

Pin 1 - Up - JAMMA 18
Pin 2 - Down - JAMMA 19
Pin 3 - Left - JAMMA 20
Pin 4 - Right- JAMMA 21
Pin 5 - Button B - JAMMA 23
Pin 6 - Button A - JAMMA 22
Pin 7 - Button C - JAMMA 24
Pin 8 - Ground - JAMMA 1 (or any other ground)
Pin 9 - Start- JAMMA 17

Just curious... why did you rewire the whole thing? You should have been able to just wire Start and A to the +5 and SEL wires, since everything else already works without those pins connected.

DogP

 

[Mattroid]

I wasn't going to bump this, but figured I should so I could not only confirm that DogP's method and to thank everyone in this thread...but mostly DogP

For reference, I wanted to do this to hook up controllers for players 3 and 4 to my NBA Jam TE board since it's currently in a 2 player cabinet. I think it was Buffett who I first found mentioning that Genesis controllers could be used for this, then I wound up in this thread. I picked up a couple of cheap controllers, some connectors, and following the comments here, came up with this:

It's not perfect - my soldering could have been better for sure. I haven't really stress tested it yet, so we'll see how it holds up under 'real' use (not for a test bench). My second controller looks a lot different from the one I've already done...I'm not sure how to wire it up yet, but assume I can figure it out. If so, I'll post pics of that one as well.

Thanks again, everyone!

Edit: My other one looks like EagleTG's above. Flip that thing over and the chip is tiny compared to the one in my pics above.