1.. include:: <isonum.txt> 2 3.. _joystick-parport: 4 5============================== 6Parallel Port Joystick Drivers 7============================== 8 9:Copyright: |copy| 1998-2000 Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@ucw.cz> 10:Copyright: |copy| 1998 Andree Borrmann <a.borrmann@tu-bs.de> 11 12 13Sponsored by SuSE 14 15Disclaimer 16========== 17 18Any information in this file is provided as-is, without any guarantee that 19it will be true. So, use it at your own risk. The possible damages that can 20happen include burning your parallel port, and/or the sticks and joystick 21and maybe even more. Like when a lightning kills you it is not our problem. 22 23Introduction 24============ 25 26The joystick parport drivers are used for joysticks and gamepads not 27originally designed for PCs and other computers Linux runs on. Because of 28that, PCs usually lack the right ports to connect these devices to. Parallel 29port, because of its ability to change single bits at will, and providing 30both output and input bits is the most suitable port on the PC for 31connecting such devices. 32 33Devices supported 34================= 35 36Many console and 8-bit computer gamepads and joysticks are supported. The 37following subsections discuss usage of each. 38 39NES and SNES 40------------ 41 42The Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Entertainment System 43gamepads are widely available, and easy to get. Also, they are quite easy to 44connect to a PC, and don't need much processing speed (108 us for NES and 45165 us for SNES, compared to about 1000 us for PC gamepads) to communicate 46with them. 47 48All NES and SNES use the same synchronous serial protocol, clocked from 49the computer's side (and thus timing insensitive). To allow up to 5 NES 50and/or SNES gamepads and/or SNES mice connected to the parallel port at once, 51the output lines of the parallel port are shared, while one of 5 available 52input lines is assigned to each gamepad. 53 54This protocol is handled by the gamecon.c driver, so that's the one 55you'll use for NES, SNES gamepads and SNES mice. 56 57The main problem with PC parallel ports is that they don't have +5V power 58source on any of their pins. So, if you want a reliable source of power 59for your pads, use either keyboard or joystick port, and make a pass-through 60cable. You can also pull the power directly from the power supply (the red 61wire is +5V). 62 63If you want to use the parallel port only, you can take the power is from 64some data pin. For most gamepad and parport implementations only one pin is 65needed, and I'd recommend pin 9 for that, the highest data bit. On the other 66hand, if you are not planning to use anything else than NES / SNES on the 67port, anything between and including pin 4 and pin 9 will work:: 68 69 (pin 9) -----> Power 70 71Unfortunately, there are pads that need a lot more of power, and parallel 72ports that can't give much current through the data pins. If this is your 73case, you'll need to use diodes (as a prevention of destroying your parallel 74port), and combine the currents of two or more data bits together:: 75 76 Diodes 77 (pin 9) ----|>|-------+------> Power 78 | 79 (pin 8) ----|>|-------+ 80 | 81 (pin 7) ----|>|-------+ 82 | 83 <and so on> : 84 | 85 (pin 4) ----|>|-------+ 86 87Ground is quite easy. On PC's parallel port the ground is on any of the 88pins from pin 18 to pin 25. So use any pin of these you like for the ground:: 89 90 (pin 18) -----> Ground 91 92NES and SNES pads have two input bits, Clock and Latch, which drive the 93serial transfer. These are connected to pins 2 and 3 of the parallel port, 94respectively:: 95 96 (pin 2) -----> Clock 97 (pin 3) -----> Latch 98 99And the last thing is the NES / SNES data wire. Only that isn't shared and 100each pad needs its own data pin. The parallel port pins are:: 101 102 (pin 10) -----> Pad 1 data 103 (pin 11) -----> Pad 2 data 104 (pin 12) -----> Pad 3 data 105 (pin 13) -----> Pad 4 data 106 (pin 15) -----> Pad 5 data 107 108Note that pin 14 is not used, since it is not an input pin on the parallel 109port. 110 111This is everything you need on the PC's side of the connection, now on to 112the gamepads side. The NES and SNES have different connectors. Also, there 113are quite a lot of NES clones, and because Nintendo used proprietary 114connectors for their machines, the cloners couldn't and used standard D-Cannon 115connectors. Anyway, if you've got a gamepad, and it has buttons A, B, Turbo 116A, Turbo B, Select and Start, and is connected through 5 wires, then it is 117either a NES or NES clone and will work with this connection. SNES gamepads 118also use 5 wires, but have more buttons. They will work as well, of course:: 119 120 Pinout for NES gamepads Pinout for SNES gamepads and mice 121 122 +----> Power +-----------------------\ 123 | 7 | o o o o | x x o | 1 124 5 +---------+ 7 +-----------------------/ 125 | x x o \ | | | | | 126 | o o o o | | | | | +-> Ground 127 4 +------------+ 1 | | | +------------> Data 128 | | | | | | +---------------> Latch 129 | | | +-> Ground | +------------------> Clock 130 | | +----> Clock +---------------------> Power 131 | +-------> Latch 132 +----------> Data 133 134 Pinout for NES clone (db9) gamepads Pinout for NES clone (db15) gamepads 135 136 +---------> Clock +-----------------> Data 137 | +-------> Latch | +---> Ground 138 | | +-----> Data | | 139 | | | ___________________ 140 _____________ 8 \ o x x x x x x o / 1 141 5 \ x o o o x / 1 \ o x x o x x o / 142 \ x o x o / 15 `~~~~~~~~~~~~~' 9 143 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 | | | 144 | | | | +----> Clock 145 | +----> Power | +----------> Latch 146 +--------> Ground +----------------> Power 147 148Multisystem joysticks 149--------------------- 150 151In the era of 8-bit machines, there was something like de-facto standard 152for joystick ports. They were all digital, and all used D-Cannon 9 pin 153connectors (db9). Because of that, a single joystick could be used without 154hassle on Atari (130, 800XE, 800XL, 2600, 7200), Amiga, Commodore C64, 155Amstrad CPC, Sinclair ZX Spectrum and many other machines. That's why these 156joysticks are called "Multisystem". 157 158Now their pinout:: 159 160 +---------> Right 161 | +-------> Left 162 | | +-----> Down 163 | | | +---> Up 164 | | | | 165 _____________ 166 5 \ x o o o o / 1 167 \ x o x o / 168 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 169 | | 170 | +----> Button 171 +--------> Ground 172 173However, as time passed, extensions to this standard developed, and these 174were not compatible with each other:: 175 176 177 Atari 130, 800/XL/XE MSX 178 179 +-----------> Power 180 +---------> Right | +---------> Right 181 | +-------> Left | | +-------> Left 182 | | +-----> Down | | | +-----> Down 183 | | | +---> Up | | | | +---> Up 184 | | | | | | | | | 185 _____________ _____________ 186 5 \ x o o o o / 1 5 \ o o o o o / 1 187 \ x o o o / \ o o o o / 188 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 189 | | | | | | | 190 | | +----> Button | | | +----> Button 1 191 | +------> Power | | +------> Button 2 192 +--------> Ground | +--------> Output 3 193 +----------> Ground 194 195 Amstrad CPC Commodore C64 196 197 +-----------> Analog Y 198 +---------> Right | +---------> Right 199 | +-------> Left | | +-------> Left 200 | | +-----> Down | | | +-----> Down 201 | | | +---> Up | | | | +---> Up 202 | | | | | | | | | 203 _____________ _____________ 204 5 \ x o o o o / 1 5 \ o o o o o / 1 205 \ x o o o / \ o o o o / 206 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 207 | | | | | | | 208 | | +----> Button 1 | | | +----> Button 209 | +------> Button 2 | | +------> Power 210 +--------> Ground | +--------> Ground 211 +----------> Analog X 212 213 Sinclair Spectrum +2A/+3 Amiga 1200 214 215 +-----------> Up +-----------> Button 3 216 | +---------> Fire | +---------> Right 217 | | | | +-------> Left 218 | | +-----> Ground | | | +-----> Down 219 | | | | | | | +---> Up 220 | | | | | | | | 221 _____________ _____________ 222 5 \ o o x o x / 1 5 \ o o o o o / 1 223 \ o o o o / \ o o o o / 224 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 225 | | | | | | | | 226 | | | +----> Right | | | +----> Button 1 227 | | +------> Left | | +------> Power 228 | +--------> Ground | +--------> Ground 229 +----------> Down +----------> Button 2 230 231 And there were many others. 232 233Multisystem joysticks using db9.c 234~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 235 236For the Multisystem joysticks, and their derivatives, the db9.c driver 237was written. It allows only one joystick / gamepad per parallel port, but 238the interface is easy to build and works with almost anything. 239 240For the basic 1-button Multisystem joystick you connect its wires to the 241parallel port like this:: 242 243 (pin 1) -----> Power 244 (pin 18) -----> Ground 245 246 (pin 2) -----> Up 247 (pin 3) -----> Down 248 (pin 4) -----> Left 249 (pin 5) -----> Right 250 (pin 6) -----> Button 1 251 252However, if the joystick is switch based (eg. clicks when you move it), 253you might or might not, depending on your parallel port, need 10 kOhm pullup 254resistors on each of the direction and button signals, like this:: 255 256 (pin 2) ------------+------> Up 257 Resistor | 258 (pin 1) --[10kOhm]--+ 259 260Try without, and if it doesn't work, add them. For TTL based joysticks / 261gamepads the pullups are not needed. 262 263For joysticks with two buttons you connect the second button to pin 7 on 264the parallel port:: 265 266 (pin 7) -----> Button 2 267 268And that's it. 269 270On a side note, if you have already built a different adapter for use with 271the digital joystick driver 0.8.0.2, this is also supported by the db9.c 272driver, as device type 8. (See section 3.2) 273 274Multisystem joysticks using gamecon.c 275~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 276 277For some people just one joystick per parallel port is not enough, and/or 278want to use them on one parallel port together with NES/SNES/PSX pads. This is 279possible using the gamecon.c. It supports up to 5 devices of the above types, 280including 1 and 2 buttons Multisystem joysticks. 281 282However, there is nothing for free. To allow more sticks to be used at 283once, you need the sticks to be purely switch based (that is non-TTL), and 284not to need power. Just a plain simple six switches inside. If your 285joystick can do more (eg. turbofire) you'll need to disable it totally first 286if you want to use gamecon.c. 287 288Also, the connection is a bit more complex. You'll need a bunch of diodes, 289and one pullup resistor. First, you connect the Directions and the button 290the same as for db9, however with the diodes between:: 291 292 Diodes 293 (pin 2) -----|<|----> Up 294 (pin 3) -----|<|----> Down 295 (pin 4) -----|<|----> Left 296 (pin 5) -----|<|----> Right 297 (pin 6) -----|<|----> Button 1 298 299For two button sticks you also connect the other button:: 300 301 (pin 7) -----|<|----> Button 2 302 303And finally, you connect the Ground wire of the joystick, like done in 304this little schematic to Power and Data on the parallel port, as described 305for the NES / SNES pads in section 2.1 of this file - that is, one data pin 306for each joystick. The power source is shared:: 307 308 Data ------------+-----> Ground 309 Resistor | 310 Power --[10kOhm]--+ 311 312And that's all, here we go! 313 314Multisystem joysticks using turbografx.c 315~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 316 317The TurboGraFX interface, designed by 318 319 Steffen Schwenke <schwenke@burg-halle.de> 320 321allows up to 7 Multisystem joysticks connected to the parallel port. In 322Steffen's version, there is support for up to 5 buttons per joystick. However, 323since this doesn't work reliably on all parallel ports, the turbografx.c driver 324supports only one button per joystick. For more information on how to build the 325interface, see: 326 327 http://www2.burg-halle.de/~schwenke/parport.html 328 329Sony Playstation 330---------------- 331 332The PSX controller is supported by the gamecon.c. Pinout of the PSX 333controller (compatible with DirectPadPro):: 334 335 +---------+---------+---------+ 336 9 | o o o | o o o | o o o | 1 parallel 337 \________|_________|________/ port pins 338 | | | | | | 339 | | | | | +--------> Clock --- (4) 340 | | | | +------------> Select --- (3) 341 | | | +---------------> Power --- (5-9) 342 | | +------------------> Ground --- (18-25) 343 | +-------------------------> Command --- (2) 344 +----------------------------> Data --- (one of 10,11,12,13,15) 345 346The driver supports these controllers: 347 348 * Standard PSX Pad 349 * NegCon PSX Pad 350 * Analog PSX Pad (red mode) 351 * Analog PSX Pad (green mode) 352 * PSX Rumble Pad 353 * PSX DDR Pad 354 355Sega 356---- 357 358All the Sega controllers are more or less based on the standard 2-button 359Multisystem joystick. However, since they don't use switches and use TTL 360logic, the only driver usable with them is the db9.c driver. 361 362Sega Master System 363~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 364 365The SMS gamepads are almost exactly the same as normal 2-button 366Multisystem joysticks. Set the driver to Multi2 mode, use the corresponding 367parallel port pins, and the following schematic:: 368 369 +-----------> Power 370 | +---------> Right 371 | | +-------> Left 372 | | | +-----> Down 373 | | | | +---> Up 374 | | | | | 375 _____________ 376 5 \ o o o o o / 1 377 \ o o x o / 378 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 379 | | | 380 | | +----> Button 1 381 | +--------> Ground 382 +----------> Button 2 383 384Sega Genesis aka MegaDrive 385~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 386 387The Sega Genesis (in Europe sold as Sega MegaDrive) pads are an extension 388to the Sega Master System pads. They use more buttons (3+1, 5+1, 6+1). Use 389the following schematic:: 390 391 +-----------> Power 392 | +---------> Right 393 | | +-------> Left 394 | | | +-----> Down 395 | | | | +---> Up 396 | | | | | 397 _____________ 398 5 \ o o o o o / 1 399 \ o o o o / 400 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 401 | | | | 402 | | | +----> Button 1 403 | | +------> Select 404 | +--------> Ground 405 +----------> Button 2 406 407The Select pin goes to pin 14 on the parallel port:: 408 409 (pin 14) -----> Select 410 411The rest is the same as for Multi2 joysticks using db9.c 412 413Sega Saturn 414~~~~~~~~~~~ 415 416Sega Saturn has eight buttons, and to transfer that, without hacks like 417Genesis 6 pads use, it needs one more select pin. Anyway, it is still 418handled by the db9.c driver. Its pinout is very different from anything 419else. Use this schematic:: 420 421 +-----------> Select 1 422 | +---------> Power 423 | | +-------> Up 424 | | | +-----> Down 425 | | | | +---> Ground 426 | | | | | 427 _____________ 428 5 \ o o o o o / 1 429 \ o o o o / 430 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 431 | | | | 432 | | | +----> Select 2 433 | | +------> Right 434 | +--------> Left 435 +----------> Power 436 437Select 1 is pin 14 on the parallel port, Select 2 is pin 16 on the 438parallel port:: 439 440 (pin 14) -----> Select 1 441 (pin 16) -----> Select 2 442 443The other pins (Up, Down, Right, Left, Power, Ground) are the same as for 444Multi joysticks using db9.c 445 446Amiga CD32 447---------- 448 449Amiga CD32 joypad uses the following pinout:: 450 451 +-----------> Button 3 452 | +---------> Right 453 | | +-------> Left 454 | | | +-----> Down 455 | | | | +---> Up 456 | | | | | 457 _____________ 458 5 \ o o o o o / 1 459 \ o o o o / 460 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 461 | | | | 462 | | | +----> Button 1 463 | | +------> Power 464 | +--------> Ground 465 +----------> Button 2 466 467It can be connected to the parallel port and driven by db9.c driver. It needs the following wiring: 468 469 ============ ============= 470 CD32 pad Parallel port 471 ============ ============= 472 1 (Up) 2 (D0) 473 2 (Down) 3 (D1) 474 3 (Left) 4 (D2) 475 4 (Right) 5 (D3) 476 5 (Button 3) 14 (AUTOFD) 477 6 (Button 1) 17 (SELIN) 478 7 (+5V) 1 (STROBE) 479 8 (Gnd) 18 (Gnd) 480 9 (Button 2) 7 (D5) 481 ============ ============= 482 483The drivers 484=========== 485 486There are three drivers for the parallel port interfaces. Each, as 487described above, allows to connect a different group of joysticks and pads. 488Here are described their command lines: 489 490gamecon.c 491--------- 492 493Using gamecon.c you can connect up to five devices to one parallel port. It 494uses the following kernel/module command line:: 495 496 gamecon.map=port,pad1,pad2,pad3,pad4,pad5 497 498Where ``port`` the number of the parport interface (eg. 0 for parport0). 499 500And ``pad1`` to ``pad5`` are pad types connected to different data input pins 501(10,11,12,13,15), as described in section 2.1 of this file. 502 503The types are: 504 505 ===== ============================= 506 Type Joystick/Pad 507 ===== ============================= 508 0 None 509 1 SNES pad 510 2 NES pad 511 4 Multisystem 1-button joystick 512 5 Multisystem 2-button joystick 513 6 N64 pad 514 7 Sony PSX controller 515 8 Sony PSX DDR controller 516 9 SNES mouse 517 ===== ============================= 518 519The exact type of the PSX controller type is autoprobed when used, so 520hot swapping should work (but is not recommended). 521 522Should you want to use more than one of parallel ports at once, you can use 523gamecon.map2 and gamecon.map3 as additional command line parameters for two 524more parallel ports. 525 526There are two options specific to PSX driver portion. gamecon.psx_delay sets 527the command delay when talking to the controllers. The default of 25 should 528work but you can try lowering it for better performance. If your pads don't 529respond try raising it until they work. Setting the type to 8 allows the 530driver to be used with Dance Dance Revolution or similar games. Arrow keys are 531registered as key presses instead of X and Y axes. 532 533db9.c 534----- 535 536Apart from making an interface, there is nothing difficult on using the 537db9.c driver. It uses the following kernel/module command line:: 538 539 db9.dev=port,type 540 541Where ``port`` is the number of the parport interface (eg. 0 for parport0). 542 543Caveat here: This driver only works on bidirectional parallel ports. If 544your parallel port is recent enough, you should have no trouble with this. 545Old parallel ports may not have this feature. 546 547``Type`` is the type of joystick or pad attached: 548 549 ===== ====================================================== 550 Type Joystick/Pad 551 ===== ====================================================== 552 0 None 553 1 Multisystem 1-button joystick 554 2 Multisystem 2-button joystick 555 3 Genesis pad (3+1 buttons) 556 5 Genesis pad (5+1 buttons) 557 6 Genesis pad (6+2 buttons) 558 7 Saturn pad (8 buttons) 559 8 Multisystem 1-button joystick (v0.8.0.2 pin-out) 560 9 Two Multisystem 1-button joysticks (v0.8.0.2 pin-out) 561 10 Amiga CD32 pad 562 ===== ====================================================== 563 564Should you want to use more than one of these joysticks/pads at once, you 565can use db9.dev2 and db9.dev3 as additional command line parameters for two 566more joysticks/pads. 567 568turbografx.c 569------------ 570 571The turbografx.c driver uses a very simple kernel/module command line:: 572 573 turbografx.map=port,js1,js2,js3,js4,js5,js6,js7 574 575Where ``port`` is the number of the parport interface (eg. 0 for parport0). 576 577``jsX`` is the number of buttons the Multisystem joysticks connected to the 578interface ports 1-7 have. For a standard multisystem joystick, this is 1. 579 580Should you want to use more than one of these interfaces at once, you can 581use turbografx.map2 and turbografx.map3 as additional command line parameters 582for two more interfaces. 583 584PC parallel port pinout 585======================= 586 587:: 588 589 .----------------------------------------. 590 At the PC: \ 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 / 591 \ 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 / 592 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 593 594====== ======= ============= 595 Pin Name Description 596====== ======= ============= 597 1 /STROBE Strobe 598 2-9 D0-D7 Data Bit 0-7 599 10 /ACK Acknowledge 600 11 BUSY Busy 601 12 PE Paper End 602 13 SELIN Select In 603 14 /AUTOFD Autofeed 604 15 /ERROR Error 605 16 /INIT Initialize 606 17 /SEL Select 607 18-25 GND Signal Ground 608====== ======= ============= 609 610 611That's all, folks! Have fun! 612