(first post, hi!) Help with a failed controller hack (sorta)

[Macabre]

Its not really "failed" as a controller hack, just my idea totally failed.

That (unattractive) pile was a test for a project I'm working on.

The idea behind the attempt;

Make a female socket from the saturn controller, that would go to the X controller (in this case, a dreamcast controller).

This way, my project can have a controller port for a sega saturn controller, and can then use a wireless receiver for a wireless controller.

I cut the end off of the saturn controllers cord, and replaced it with the female end of an extension cord.


What I know works;

1.) The female end of the saturn cord is functional (I took the two male ends, one from the extension cord, and one cut from the controller, and combined them, to test and make sure I didn't goof up on this.

2.) The saturn hack & dreamcast hack - both pads's wires are soldered correctly, all controllers "functioned" normally when playing with the ground-wire and all button-wires, when testing them with their own respective system.

3.) The voltage - it is tied to both, and both pads require 5 volts. Both pads have a common ground, so I know that the saturn pad is still getting its 5Volts.


But, when I did a test with the two pads connected, and plugged a stock wired sega saturn controller into the female plug of the hacked saturn pad, the dreamcast game had zero response.



I understand that the common idea behind a pad hack is that I should be using the buttons of the saturn controller, instead of doing some backwards-out-the-IC-chip thing.



I should now say this; I'm not an electronics expert. I've come this far simply by reading guides and asking for help. I'm "mechanically minded," meaning it was easy for me to see the "big picture" of what I'm trying. But this... flaw... in my project, is simply out of my league of understanding.


I went back and re-read a lot of the guides I was following. One thread in a forum suggested that one might remove the IC chip of the pad being hacked, for a scenario similar to what I'm trying. Would removing the hacked saturn pad's IC chip be of any help here?



Help on this would be most appreciated. Its critical that I can make my project have wireless controllers, as its... sort of the point of the entire thing (removing wires from the system).




Also, this is my first post, so Hello & Salutations all!

[tom61]

The two ICs are interacting with each other and one is blocking the other, which ever isn't going to the target console needs its chip removed.

I'm a little confused on how this will yield a wireless controller, though. Are you planning on using a wireless Dreamcast controller to make a wireless Saturn controller? If that is the plan, it won't work, the signals that Dreamcat controllers output won't work with Saturn (and vice versa).

[Macabre]

My theoretical setup was as follows;

Wireless Receiver (for sega saturn controller) {Connected to} Female (aforementioned modified) plug connected to the saturn controller {Connected to} X-controller for X-system.

In this case, X-controller & X-system = dreamcast.

The entire project has multiple consoles, and I've already figured I'll need to keep the power supplies separate from the X-controller for X-system.


I'm not sure if removing the IC chip will be helpful, as I was assuming that the signals sent from the wireless receiver would be in the same language as the saturn pad.

My idea might be totally flawed, as I assumed that it was all just a bunch of "complete this connection," and didn't consider that the hacked saturn pad in my picture was receiving signals via its plug.


I'd still love to know of any ideas on how to fix this. Thanks for the hasty reply tom61!

[tom61]

That is an interesting idea if I'm following right. Completely wrong, but interesting. Controller buttons don't become outputs if you wire the pad backwards, they're input only.

They do sell commercial adapters that would allow you use Saturn pads on Dreamcast (check eBay), which use a custom chip or a microcontroller with custom code, to translate the Saturn's controller (or wireless receiver in this case) signals into what the Dreamcast controllers use. I seem to recall that there is an adapter to convert Saturn to Playstation 2, which could then be connected to nearly anything afterwards (via another adapter).

[Macabre]

Yea the "total control" series, iirc #3 is the one that is saturn to dreamcast.

The adapter doesn't quite have the buttons mapped as I'd like, although I'm sure its possible to alter the adapter.


I highly doubt it will be of any help, but I'm going to take a closer look at the wireless receivers board, as i'm curious if there is any work I can do to it.


Adapters sadly won't be of much help here, as the systems that are to be in the unit are; genesis, snes, ps1, dreamcast, & gamecube. While they do make an adapter to make genesis pins work into snes pins, and ps1/gc/dc adapters, I'm not sure if anything was made to work the saturn back to a genesis or snes.

I would actually prefer to keep with the pad-hacking instead of relying on adapters. If there is an adapter that I haven't heard of, then there is a good chance that its rare. I'm building this unit simply because I already own all the controllers (twenty controllers + the four I was intending on using for the receiver's pad-hack + 2 wireless genesis + 2 wireless saturn controllers). The unit is centered around the Bomberman series, and is a 4-player unit, so each adapter I would have to purchase would actually be four adapters.

I'm a huge fan of that game series, and the only reason I own three out of the 5 systems, and all those extra controllers, is due to the games released on those systems.

I would really hate to give up the idea of wireless pads on this unit.

If anyone has any ideas, please share!

[Macabre]

I actually had another idea.

Reconsidering the Total Control 3 (saturn to dreamcast) adapter...

What I'm looking for is something that intercepts a saturn signal (for two of the four controllers), and puts it out to separated wires per button.

I don't have one of those adapters handy, but would it be a likely scenario to assume that the adapter has two chips, one for intercepting the saturn signal, and one for putting out a dreamcast signal? And between those two chips might be the individual paths per button that I'm looking for?

If that is the case, then I might be able to simply remove the dreamcast-out chip, and wire my X-controller for X-system wires directly to those traces.

That does sound like a solid theory, but I don't have an adapter handy for me to take apart and look...

[tom61]

Based on another similar adapter (a Smart Joy PS2 gamepad/racing wheel and PS/2 keyboard to Dreamcast) it is a possibility. In the Smart Joy, it seems to have a glob top on a circuit board that looks like it was in a controller at one point (odd trace layout and test points) that is on a circuit board separate from the main board that seems to connect to the Dreamcast side, and a normal chip (probably a microcontroller or ASIC) on the PS2 and PS/2 side. If how it appears is the way it really is, and the TC3 is the same way, that'd almost certainly work. The only troubles would if the controllers had a different matrix from that of the chip rip inside of it(I.E. if either the chip or the donor controller is not one ground line + one signal per button), as then you'd have key masking or ghosting troubles (presses not registering, or presses triggering multiple buttons, respectively). Though, that could be gotten around by 4066s, if it's only on the donor controller side.

[Macabre]

I'm silly - I forgot I actually had a TC3 set aside for another project.

Here is the inside of a TC3 (total control 3, saturn to dreamcast adapter). VMU port is facing the picture, saturn plug is on the right.

It breaks up into 16 points.

A saturn pad has 13 button points, a voltage & a common ground (15 points).

This adapter features a re-arrangement for twinsticks (top left switch), as well as a "pause" button (bottom right corner).

When taking a multimeter over the points and my open saturn pad, I was able to detect on various places on the TC3 ground & voltage continuity (four different "areas," the two sets of 16 points that have holes threw the TC3 {one being covered by the micro chip on top}, and two sets of 16 on the micro chip on top). Some of these sets had multiple voltages, which I'm guessing that there are for a reason, as that is the adapters way of reconfiguring the button's for the controller vs twinsticks mode? Or possibly the "pause" button?

I was although unable to detect any button points. I am not very good at electronics nor a multimeter, so I might have been doing the continuity test wrong (i was just pressing one point against a wire, and one against the points on the TC3, maybe I was supposed to include a ground when testing for buttons?)

The pad I was testing was also still wired up to a dreamcast controller (first picture in first post), and the TC3 still has its IC chip in place (i'm guessing that the TC3's IC chip is the square in the left corner of my picture?), so I'm not sure if that would have any effect on the continuity test.


Again thank you so much for the help here!

[tom61]

Going through the Saturn pads contacts points would only work if this was a direct-wire style controller, like a Neo-Geo or Atari 2600 controller. However, the Saturn controllers are protocol driven, the IC in it is multiplexing the buttons so that far fewer wires are needed going to the console. You should get only a hit for ground at most when testing between the Saturn's pads and anywhere past the Saturn's IC. The chips being in will affect your readings inside the adapter, as the voltage from the continuity test are going through the chips triggering things.

Good news is that it looks like the adapter is indeed doing things in two stages. The blob-top on the sliver of board soldered to the main board is just a cheaper alternative to whatever larger chip they were using to decode the Saturn controller's output(which is why it has empty holes in a larger rectangular pattern around it.) The Xilinx chip is probably a CPLD, basically a chip you can program once to do simple things, which is taking the output of the first chip and probably outputting what the Dreamcast needs as a controller input. There is possible snag of more stuff happening where the VMU plugs in, photos of both sides of that board would be good. The good news is that there at least 8 traces going between the Saturn decoding chip and the Dreamcast encoding chip, post a picture of the other side of the board, as there are a few holes where traces can jump from one side to the other that could account for the remaining lines.

[Macabre]

Wow! I'm rather shocked that a spur-of-the-moment theory like that actually had any value to it.

Here is a better picture of the front (saturn goes in to the top), and a shot of the back (again saturn port is at the top).

The chips being in will affect your readings inside the adapter, as the voltage from the continuity test are going through the chips triggering things.

So it will be more of a guessing game once I solder all the leads to the 15 lines, to see what wire functions as what button?

I have no use for the VMU port. Nor the LED.

The "8 traces from saturn to dreamcast chip" that you were speaking of, are those the traces tightly packed with the white text "TDO" in the center of the traces?


Would my next step be to remove the dreamcast chip, and solder a few wires to those traces to see what buttons they function as?


Again thank you so much for all this help, your really are singlehandedly saving the wireless feature on my project!

[tom61]

The chips being in will affect your readings inside the adapter, as the voltage from the continuity test are going through the chips triggering things.

So it will be more of a guessing game once I solder all the leads to the 15 lines, to see what wire functions as what button?

Yep, though you can at least find out which lines go where between chips if looking at them visually is causing doubt (you may get partial reads, but 0 ohms mean that it it positively connected)

I have no use for the VMU port. Nor the LED.

So long as the board that it's on doesn't have any extra circuitry, removing it shouldn't interfere with anything.

The "8 traces from saturn to dreamcast chip" that you were speaking of, are those the traces tightly packed with the white text "TDO" in the center of the traces?

Yep.

Would my next step be to remove the dreamcast chip, and solder a few wires to those traces to see what buttons they function as?

Hmm... a snag with that is that Dreamcast side is what is powering the adapter. Removing that chip and poking around with the Dreamcast attached and on could damage the Dreamcast. Once powered on its own, it'd be an OK next step. Keep in mind that the signals there are outputs, though. You'd want to try soldering the ground trace of whatever controller you're trying use on the console to the adapter's ground (the trace covered with the lettering 'TDI' is one) and the line you want to test to the other side of a button contact.

[Macabre]

The supplied voltage was already a given - my project is to have some consoles that don't supply the needed 5 volts to their own respective controllers. I think as long as the grounds are kept the same it should work.

Fun time, shall post some results, or the brick-edness, of this adapter soon!~