Snes Usb

[ReRuss]

Is there any chematics to build a USB adapter for SNES , and possibly without any special chip work?

[NFG]

This is a ridiculous question, there's no content at all.  What kind of USB adaptor?  For the SNES system?  What are you trying to do?

And if you mean a controller adaptor, then no, of course not, there's no possible way to convert a SNES pad to USB without 'special chip work'.

[atom]

Theres no way to do anything with USB without a chip. Anything sent serially needs some sort of protocol.

[ReRuss]

Wouldn't I need a chip burner and some special part ordered?

Or could it possibly work to use USB chip out of a controller with the amount same buttons already? - Saitek P150

[NFG]

What atom says is correct.  It's time to make that post a constantly-referenced answer to these questions.  =)

ReRuss:  Of course, you can't burn chips without a burner.  And as you've seen from the Saturn pad mod on gamesx ripping the chip out of one pad for use in another is exactly what we're talking about.

When you consider the cheapest chip programmer you can find is a parallel port no-frills $30 unit, combined with the $5-7 cost for a programmable IC and the time it takes to learn assembly, code and test your chip, it's far far FAR cheaper to just buy a $12 controller and gut it.

Or get a lovely $30 Saturn USB pad from Sega.

[ReRuss]

Well the Saitek was always $10 far as I knew of and I ended up buying a 2nd one for $5 which they're rarely ever used since I just use LPT , the only port I really don't have use for...

But is there any sort of schematics for wiring up SNES to teh USB chip?

[NFG]

Wiring up the SNES pad is no different than any other pad.  First remove the SNES chip, locate the common line, and then wire up the rest of the switches on the USB chip to the buttons on the pad.

Note that there's no such thing as a "USB chip" any more than there's a "parallel port chip".  USB is a protocol, you can create the protocol with whatever you like.  There's a thousand different chips that can do the job.  

[ReRuss]

Isn't there some way to get an adapter without hacking the pad?

[kendrick]

If you don't wish to disassemble any existing controllers, then what you need to do to build an adapter is decode the output of an SNES controller and re-encode it to match the output of a USB controller. This is a more complex operation; the GamesX instructions for hacking a controller into a USB pad involve simply taking each button function and routing them directly to the input of the USB encoder chip. Now what's happening is you're encoding the controlling input into an SNES output signal, re-decoding it back out into up/down/left/right/action, and the re-encoding it back into something that the USB port can understand.

Super Nintendo controllers are generally cheap and plentiful from the right used games shop. It's a lot of work to modify it, but it's not very expensive. I would go with the original suggestion of opening up an SNES pad, if that's really the input method you want to use.

-KKC, the only morning person left on the east coast. Why don't people like to get up in the mornings?

[ReRuss]

I have one pad I generally love to use but I really don't wanna hack into it , but I guess I could try finding a PAL controller or one that doesn't have the curved-in X and Y...

[Adeptus]

There are a couple of commercially available adaptors...

Super SmartJoy is a SNES to USB adaptor, available from Lik-Sang & probably other places.

RetroKit is a DIY solution for converting a pad - either inside the pad, or externally (they suggest inside your PC)

[ReRuss]

Super Smart Joy = Soyo = Crap

As for the other , it's somthing I could build just as easily if I had the parts.

[Aidan]

Well, there's plenty of microcontrollers out there that talk USB. You'll need to write your own code to run on it. Most manufacturers produce example code you could probably modify however.

On the one hand, you want a preprogrammed microcontroller. On the other hand, when  someone points out a preprogrammed microcontroller (and oscillator), you tell them that you could do the same thing if you had the parts. Make your mind up, you can't have it both ways.

[ReRuss]

Well preprgrammed chip would be good , but I ain't about to fork over $17 for their kit , seems kinda pointless to pay for somthing I already have but exclude the drivers...

Tho I may as well get a pad and mod in a USB chip out of another controller , but it'd be nice to find a PAL controller since it'd have buttons like my Asciipad.

[Adeptus]

As people have said, your options are:

1. Hack your pad (which you said you don't want to do)

2. Buy a chip programmer, find/write code for it, buy & burn a chip, buy & construct a circuit

3. Buy a preprogrammed kit or convertor

What you're paying for in the RetroKit, apart from the physical parts, is the program on the chip. In case you're not aware, SNES (as with all 'modern' consoles apart from the Neo Geo) isn't as simple as one pin on the cable connects to one button. It's closer to one pin connects to ALL buttons, via a chip. The RetroKit (and Super SmartJoy) decodes the signals that the pad puts out, then re-encodes them for USB.

I'm not saying you SHOULD buy one, just that the price isn't unreasonable.

[Aidan]

Well preprgrammed chip would be good , but I ain't about to fork over $17 for their kit , seems kinda pointless to pay for somthing I already have but exclude the drivers...

So rip the controller out of another pad and re-wire the SNES pad to that instead. The last USB capable microcontrollers I bought were about $9.50 each. Add in the cost of the development kit, and you're already over the $17 you're complaining about.

I'm not sure why you're talking about drivers - USB uses HID to handle such input devices. As just about any USB capable OS already has a HID driver to handle things like keyboard and mouse, you don't need any special driver.