1 Linux Joystick parport drivers v2.0 2 (c) 1998-2000 Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@ucw.cz> 3 (c) 1998 Andree Borrmann <a.borrmann@tu-bs.de> 4 Sponsored by SuSE 5---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 70. Disclaimer 8~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 9 Any information in this file is provided as-is, without any guarantee that 10it will be true. So, use it at your own risk. The possible damages that can 11happen include burning your parallel port, and/or the sticks and joystick 12and maybe even more. Like when a lightning kills you it is not our problem. 13 141. Intro 15~~~~~~~~ 16 The joystick parport drivers are used for joysticks and gamepads not 17originally designed for PCs and other computers Linux runs on. Because of 18that, PCs usually lack the right ports to connect these devices to. Parallel 19port, because of its ability to change single bits at will, and providing 20both output and input bits is the most suitable port on the PC for 21connecting such devices. 22 232. Devices supported 24~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 25 Many console and 8-bit computer gamepads and joysticks are supported. The 26following subsections discuss usage of each. 27 282.1 NES and SNES 29~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 30 The Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Entertainment System 31gamepads are widely available, and easy to get. Also, they are quite easy to 32connect to a PC, and don't need much processing speed (108 us for NES and 33165 us for SNES, compared to about 1000 us for PC gamepads) to communicate 34with them. 35 36 All NES and SNES use the same synchronous serial protocol, clocked from 37the computer's side (and thus timing insensitive). To allow up to 5 NES 38and/or SNES gamepads and/or SNES mice connected to the parallel port at once, 39the output lines of the parallel port are shared, while one of 5 available 40input lines is assigned to each gamepad. 41 42 This protocol is handled by the gamecon.c driver, so that's the one 43you'll use for NES, SNES gamepads and SNES mice. 44 45 The main problem with PC parallel ports is that they don't have +5V power 46source on any of their pins. So, if you want a reliable source of power 47for your pads, use either keyboard or joystick port, and make a pass-through 48cable. You can also pull the power directly from the power supply (the red 49wire is +5V). 50 51 If you want to use the parallel port only, you can take the power is from 52some data pin. For most gamepad and parport implementations only one pin is 53needed, and I'd recommend pin 9 for that, the highest data bit. On the other 54hand, if you are not planning to use anything else than NES / SNES on the 55port, anything between and including pin 4 and pin 9 will work. 56 57(pin 9) -----> Power 58 59 Unfortunately, there are pads that need a lot more of power, and parallel 60ports that can't give much current through the data pins. If this is your 61case, you'll need to use diodes (as a prevention of destroying your parallel 62port), and combine the currents of two or more data bits together. 63 64 Diodes 65(pin 9) ----|>|-------+------> Power 66 | 67(pin 8) ----|>|-------+ 68 | 69(pin 7) ----|>|-------+ 70 | 71 <and so on> : 72 | 73(pin 4) ----|>|-------+ 74 75 Ground is quite easy. On PC's parallel port the ground is on any of the 76pins from pin 18 to pin 25. So use any pin of these you like for the ground. 77 78(pin 18) -----> Ground 79 80 NES and SNES pads have two input bits, Clock and Latch, which drive the 81serial transfer. These are connected to pins 2 and 3 of the parallel port, 82respectively. 83 84(pin 2) -----> Clock 85(pin 3) -----> Latch 86 87 And the last thing is the NES / SNES data wire. Only that isn't shared and 88each pad needs its own data pin. The parallel port pins are: 89 90(pin 10) -----> Pad 1 data 91(pin 11) -----> Pad 2 data 92(pin 12) -----> Pad 3 data 93(pin 13) -----> Pad 4 data 94(pin 15) -----> Pad 5 data 95 96 Note that pin 14 is not used, since it is not an input pin on the parallel 97port. 98 99 This is everything you need on the PC's side of the connection, now on to 100the gamepads side. The NES and SNES have different connectors. Also, there 101are quite a lot of NES clones, and because Nintendo used proprietary 102connectors for their machines, the cloners couldn't and used standard D-Cannon 103connectors. Anyway, if you've got a gamepad, and it has buttons A, B, Turbo 104A, Turbo B, Select and Start, and is connected through 5 wires, then it is 105either a NES or NES clone and will work with this connection. SNES gamepads 106also use 5 wires, but have more buttons. They will work as well, of course. 107 108Pinout for NES gamepads Pinout for SNES gamepads and mice 109 110 +----> Power +-----------------------\ 111 | 7 | o o o o | x x o | 1 112 5 +---------+ 7 +-----------------------/ 113 | x x o \ | | | | | 114 | o o o o | | | | | +-> Ground 115 4 +------------+ 1 | | | +------------> Data 116 | | | | | | +---------------> Latch 117 | | | +-> Ground | +------------------> Clock 118 | | +----> Clock +---------------------> Power 119 | +-------> Latch 120 +----------> Data 121 122Pinout for NES clone (db9) gamepads Pinout for NES clone (db15) gamepads 123 124 +---------> Clock +-----------------> Data 125 | +-------> Latch | +---> Ground 126 | | +-----> Data | | 127 | | | ___________________ 128 _____________ 8 \ o x x x x x x o / 1 129 5 \ x o o o x / 1 \ o x x o x x o / 130 \ x o x o / 15 `~~~~~~~~~~~~~' 9 131 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 | | | 132 | | | | +----> Clock 133 | +----> Power | +----------> Latch 134 +--------> Ground +----------------> Power 135 1362.2 Multisystem joysticks 137~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 138 In the era of 8-bit machines, there was something like de-facto standard 139for joystick ports. They were all digital, and all used D-Cannon 9 pin 140connectors (db9). Because of that, a single joystick could be used without 141hassle on Atari (130, 800XE, 800XL, 2600, 7200), Amiga, Commodore C64, 142Amstrad CPC, Sinclair ZX Spectrum and many other machines. That's why these 143joysticks are called "Multisystem". 144 145 Now their pinout: 146 147 +---------> Right 148 | +-------> Left 149 | | +-----> Down 150 | | | +---> Up 151 | | | | 152 _____________ 1535 \ x o o o o / 1 154 \ x o x o / 155 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 156 | | 157 | +----> Button 158 +--------> Ground 159 160 However, as time passed, extensions to this standard developed, and these 161were not compatible with each other: 162 163 164 Atari 130, 800/XL/XE MSX 165 166 +-----------> Power 167 +---------> Right | +---------> Right 168 | +-------> Left | | +-------> Left 169 | | +-----> Down | | | +-----> Down 170 | | | +---> Up | | | | +---> Up 171 | | | | | | | | | 172 _____________ _____________ 1735 \ x o o o o / 1 5 \ o o o o o / 1 174 \ x o o o / \ o o o o / 175 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 176 | | | | | | | 177 | | +----> Button | | | +----> Button 1 178 | +------> Power | | +------> Button 2 179 +--------> Ground | +--------> Output 3 180 +----------> Ground 181 182 Amstrad CPC Commodore C64 183 184 +-----------> Analog Y 185 +---------> Right | +---------> Right 186 | +-------> Left | | +-------> Left 187 | | +-----> Down | | | +-----> Down 188 | | | +---> Up | | | | +---> Up 189 | | | | | | | | | 190 _____________ _____________ 1915 \ x o o o o / 1 5 \ o o o o o / 1 192 \ x o o o / \ o o o o / 193 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 194 | | | | | | | 195 | | +----> Button 1 | | | +----> Button 196 | +------> Button 2 | | +------> Power 197 +--------> Ground | +--------> Ground 198 +----------> Analog X 199 200 Sinclair Spectrum +2A/+3 Amiga 1200 201 202 +-----------> Up +-----------> Button 3 203 | +---------> Fire | +---------> Right 204 | | | | +-------> Left 205 | | +-----> Ground | | | +-----> Down 206 | | | | | | | +---> Up 207 | | | | | | | | 208 _____________ _____________ 2095 \ o o x o x / 1 5 \ o o o o o / 1 210 \ o o o o / \ o o o o / 211 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 212 | | | | | | | | 213 | | | +----> Right | | | +----> Button 1 214 | | +------> Left | | +------> Power 215 | +--------> Ground | +--------> Ground 216 +----------> Down +----------> Button 2 217 218 And there were many others. 219 2202.2.1 Multisystem joysticks using db9.c 221~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 222 For the Multisystem joysticks, and their derivatives, the db9.c driver 223was written. It allows only one joystick / gamepad per parallel port, but 224the interface is easy to build and works with almost anything. 225 226 For the basic 1-button Multisystem joystick you connect its wires to the 227parallel port like this: 228 229(pin 1) -----> Power 230(pin 18) -----> Ground 231 232(pin 2) -----> Up 233(pin 3) -----> Down 234(pin 4) -----> Left 235(pin 5) -----> Right 236(pin 6) -----> Button 1 237 238 However, if the joystick is switch based (eg. clicks when you move it), 239you might or might not, depending on your parallel port, need 10 kOhm pullup 240resistors on each of the direction and button signals, like this: 241 242(pin 2) ------------+------> Up 243 Resistor | 244(pin 1) --[10kOhm]--+ 245 246 Try without, and if it doesn't work, add them. For TTL based joysticks / 247gamepads the pullups are not needed. 248 249 For joysticks with two buttons you connect the second button to pin 7 on 250the parallel port. 251 252(pin 7) -----> Button 2 253 254 And that's it. 255 256 On a side note, if you have already built a different adapter for use with 257the digital joystick driver 0.8.0.2, this is also supported by the db9.c 258driver, as device type 8. (See section 3.2) 259 2602.2.2 Multisystem joysticks using gamecon.c 261~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 262 For some people just one joystick per parallel port is not enough, and/or 263want to use them on one parallel port together with NES/SNES/PSX pads. This is 264possible using the gamecon.c. It supports up to 5 devices of the above types, 265including 1 and 2 buttons Multisystem joysticks. 266 267 However, there is nothing for free. To allow more sticks to be used at 268once, you need the sticks to be purely switch based (that is non-TTL), and 269not to need power. Just a plain simple six switches inside. If your 270joystick can do more (eg. turbofire) you'll need to disable it totally first 271if you want to use gamecon.c. 272 273 Also, the connection is a bit more complex. You'll need a bunch of diodes, 274and one pullup resistor. First, you connect the Directions and the button 275the same as for db9, however with the diodes inbetween. 276 277 Diodes 278(pin 2) -----|<|----> Up 279(pin 3) -----|<|----> Down 280(pin 4) -----|<|----> Left 281(pin 5) -----|<|----> Right 282(pin 6) -----|<|----> Button 1 283 284 For two button sticks you also connect the other button. 285 286(pin 7) -----|<|----> Button 2 287 288 And finally, you connect the Ground wire of the joystick, like done in 289this little schematic to Power and Data on the parallel port, as described 290for the NES / SNES pads in section 2.1 of this file - that is, one data pin 291for each joystick. The power source is shared. 292 293Data ------------+-----> Ground 294 Resistor | 295Power --[10kOhm]--+ 296 297 And that's all, here we go! 298 2992.2.3 Multisystem joysticks using turbografx.c 300~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 301 The TurboGraFX interface, designed by 302 303 Steffen Schwenke <schwenke@burg-halle.de> 304 305 allows up to 7 Multisystem joysticks connected to the parallel port. In 306Steffen's version, there is support for up to 5 buttons per joystick. However, 307since this doesn't work reliably on all parallel ports, the turbografx.c driver 308supports only one button per joystick. For more information on how to build the 309interface, see 310 311 http://www2.burg-halle.de/~schwenke/parport.html 312 3132.3 Sony Playstation 314~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 315 316 The PSX controller is supported by the gamecon.c. Pinout of the PSX 317controller (compatible with DirectPadPro): 318 319 +---------+---------+---------+ 3209 | o o o | o o o | o o o | 1 parallel 321 \________|_________|________/ port pins 322 | | | | | | 323 | | | | | +--------> Clock --- (4) 324 | | | | +------------> Select --- (3) 325 | | | +---------------> Power --- (5-9) 326 | | +------------------> Ground --- (18-25) 327 | +-------------------------> Command --- (2) 328 +----------------------------> Data --- (one of 10,11,12,13,15) 329 330 The driver supports these controllers: 331 332 * Standard PSX Pad 333 * NegCon PSX Pad 334 * Analog PSX Pad (red mode) 335 * Analog PSX Pad (green mode) 336 * PSX Rumble Pad 337 * PSX DDR Pad 338 3392.4 Sega 340~~~~~~~~ 341 All the Sega controllers are more or less based on the standard 2-button 342Multisystem joystick. However, since they don't use switches and use TTL 343logic, the only driver usable with them is the db9.c driver. 344 3452.4.1 Sega Master System 346~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 347 The SMS gamepads are almost exactly the same as normal 2-button 348Multisystem joysticks. Set the driver to Multi2 mode, use the corresponding 349parallel port pins, and the following schematic: 350 351 +-----------> Power 352 | +---------> Right 353 | | +-------> Left 354 | | | +-----> Down 355 | | | | +---> Up 356 | | | | | 357 _____________ 3585 \ o o o o o / 1 359 \ o o x o / 360 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 361 | | | 362 | | +----> Button 1 363 | +--------> Ground 364 +----------> Button 2 365 3662.4.2 Sega Genesis aka MegaDrive 367~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 368 The Sega Genesis (in Europe sold as Sega MegaDrive) pads are an extension 369to the Sega Master System pads. They use more buttons (3+1, 5+1, 6+1). Use 370the following schematic: 371 372 +-----------> Power 373 | +---------> Right 374 | | +-------> Left 375 | | | +-----> Down 376 | | | | +---> Up 377 | | | | | 378 _____________ 3795 \ o o o o o / 1 380 \ o o o o / 381 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 382 | | | | 383 | | | +----> Button 1 384 | | +------> Select 385 | +--------> Ground 386 +----------> Button 2 387 388 The Select pin goes to pin 14 on the parallel port. 389 390(pin 14) -----> Select 391 392 The rest is the same as for Multi2 joysticks using db9.c 393 3942.4.3 Sega Saturn 395~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 396 Sega Saturn has eight buttons, and to transfer that, without hacks like 397Genesis 6 pads use, it needs one more select pin. Anyway, it is still 398handled by the db9.c driver. Its pinout is very different from anything 399else. Use this schematic: 400 401 +-----------> Select 1 402 | +---------> Power 403 | | +-------> Up 404 | | | +-----> Down 405 | | | | +---> Ground 406 | | | | | 407 _____________ 4085 \ o o o o o / 1 409 \ o o o o / 410 9 `~~~~~~~' 6 411 | | | | 412 | | | +----> Select 2 413 | | +------> Right 414 | +--------> Left 415 +----------> Power 416 417 Select 1 is pin 14 on the parallel port, Select 2 is pin 16 on the 418parallel port. 419 420(pin 14) -----> Select 1 421(pin 16) -----> Select 2 422 423 The other pins (Up, Down, Right, Left, Power, Ground) are the same as for 424Multi joysticks using db9.c 425 4263. The drivers 427~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 428 There are three drivers for the parallel port interfaces. Each, as 429described above, allows to connect a different group of joysticks and pads. 430Here are described their command lines: 431 4323.1 gamecon.c 433~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 434 Using gamecon.c you can connect up to five devices to one parallel port. It 435uses the following kernel/module command line: 436 437 gamecon.map=port,pad1,pad2,pad3,pad4,pad5 438 439 Where 'port' the number of the parport interface (eg. 0 for parport0). 440 441 And 'pad1' to 'pad5' are pad types connected to different data input pins 442(10,11,12,13,15), as described in section 2.1 of this file. 443 444 The types are: 445 446 Type | Joystick/Pad 447 -------------------- 448 0 | None 449 1 | SNES pad 450 2 | NES pad 451 4 | Multisystem 1-button joystick 452 5 | Multisystem 2-button joystick 453 6 | N64 pad 454 7 | Sony PSX controller 455 8 | Sony PSX DDR controller 456 9 | SNES mouse 457 458 The exact type of the PSX controller type is autoprobed when used, so 459hot swapping should work (but is not recommended). 460 461 Should you want to use more than one of parallel ports at once, you can use 462gamecon.map2 and gamecon.map3 as additional command line parameters for two 463more parallel ports. 464 465 There are two options specific to PSX driver portion. gamecon.psx_delay sets 466the command delay when talking to the controllers. The default of 25 should 467work but you can try lowering it for better performance. If your pads don't 468respond try raising it until they work. Setting the type to 8 allows the 469driver to be used with Dance Dance Revolution or similar games. Arrow keys are 470registered as key presses instead of X and Y axes. 471 4723.2 db9.c 473~~~~~~~~~ 474 Apart from making an interface, there is nothing difficult on using the 475db9.c driver. It uses the following kernel/module command line: 476 477 db9.dev=port,type 478 479 Where 'port' is the number of the parport interface (eg. 0 for parport0). 480 481 Caveat here: This driver only works on bidirectional parallel ports. If 482your parallel port is recent enough, you should have no trouble with this. 483Old parallel ports may not have this feature. 484 485 'Type' is the type of joystick or pad attached: 486 487 Type | Joystick/Pad 488 -------------------- 489 0 | None 490 1 | Multisystem 1-button joystick 491 2 | Multisystem 2-button joystick 492 3 | Genesis pad (3+1 buttons) 493 5 | Genesis pad (5+1 buttons) 494 6 | Genesis pad (6+2 buttons) 495 7 | Saturn pad (8 buttons) 496 8 | Multisystem 1-button joystick (v0.8.0.2 pin-out) 497 9 | Two Multisystem 1-button joysticks (v0.8.0.2 pin-out) 498 10 | Amiga CD32 pad 499 500 Should you want to use more than one of these joysticks/pads at once, you 501can use db9.dev2 and db9.dev3 as additional command line parameters for two 502more joysticks/pads. 503 5043.3 turbografx.c 505~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 506 The turbografx.c driver uses a very simple kernel/module command line: 507 508 turbografx.map=port,js1,js2,js3,js4,js5,js6,js7 509 510 Where 'port' is the number of the parport interface (eg. 0 for parport0). 511 512 'jsX' is the number of buttons the Multisystem joysticks connected to the 513interface ports 1-7 have. For a standard multisystem joystick, this is 1. 514 515 Should you want to use more than one of these interfaces at once, you can 516use turbografx.map2 and turbografx.map3 as additional command line parameters 517for two more interfaces. 518 5193.4 PC parallel port pinout 520~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 521 .----------------------------------------. 522 At the PC: \ 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 / 523 \ 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 / 524 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 525 526 Pin | Name | Description 527 ~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~ 528 1 | /STROBE | Strobe 529 2-9 | D0-D7 | Data Bit 0-7 530 10 | /ACK | Acknowledge 531 11 | BUSY | Busy 532 12 | PE | Paper End 533 13 | SELIN | Select In 534 14 | /AUTOFD | Autofeed 535 15 | /ERROR | Error 536 16 | /INIT | Initialize 537 17 | /SEL | Select 538 18-25 | GND | Signal Ground 539 5403.5 End 541~~~~~~~ 542 That's all, folks! Have fun! 543