Bacteria's project: "Project Unity"

[bacteria]

Video as promised:

[alienjesus]

It's a very impressive piece of work you have there, but I'm a little concerned by the 4 button layout with N64 and Saturn. I know you showed how thr mapping would work with the keypad for N64, but in some games those C buttons are pretty important. The extra buttons on a Saturn controller even more so. Is it not a little uncomfortable for those systems?

[bacteria]

As you say, some games (Banjo) use the C-buttons more, and in conjunction with the A and B too; as long as the keypad buttons are reachable they are fine. On the N64 controller they are closer together and need a bit of dexterity there too, so no real difference. The Master Controller is easy to hold and move around so there is no issue in that regard, and far more comfortable to hold and use than many controllers out there!

Every controller out there has been made with compromises, which is also why for example, N64 games that use the C buttons for camera angles have no issue but using C buttons on an official controller for in-game play, less easy to use due to positioning of the C buttons in relation to the others on an official N64 controller. No difference really therefore.

[bacteria]

Ok, controller working so far. Done a fair bit of wiring as you can see - basically, there was a daughter board going through the controller board and connected to both sides, which had to be desoldered and rewired - 52 wires. Also had to relocate the port for the memory card (14 wires). All works, so can get on with slicing the controller board up and rewiring the remainder.

[Drakon]

Looks a lot like the atari jaguar control pad

[bacteria]

Nah, it's a fair bit different!

[Drakon]

Nah, it's a fair bit different!

has more buttons?

[bacteria]

And here's the first part of the reduction. The DreamCast controller is only two layer so easy to see what connects to what.

The space in the NES is big enough to take the memory card, and i'll be reducing some of the other side of the controller of course so it all fits nicely. Tested what i've done so far and it works still.

[bacteria]

DreamCast controller is cut down as far as reasonably can; could reduce it by about 10-15% more if needed but don't need to, would make a lot more work for no benefit. As it is, the reduced controller will fit nicely into the NES game cart. Just tested the controller, works fine, sees and can access the data on the memory card, ok, etc. Next step is to wire the controller to the JAMMA connection, and hard wire the memory card; then test the system again as final test with the original controller cables connected, then get rid of those as the NES cart will be ready then for me to get the DreamCast connected to the Unity system as per the other systems (at the moment i'm still running the console off mains power point).

As you see, had to do a shedload of wiring.



The ribbon for the drive unit has come, I need to test to check the DreamCast is happy with a 34cm long ribbon cable.

[bacteria]

Got it crammed into the NES game cart, and it works, been testing it. Got more testing to do, and also get the shoulder buttons sorted.

Coming on well!