Sega Master System controllers on an Amiga?

[carvedeye]

You have to be playing games that support that extra button of course.

assuming you are, you should have a working B and C buttons, this is true for the 6 button pads too (which I use) Some games which should support the extra button in WHDload don't seem to support this very well however, and one of the faster Master System emulators also does not support it, despite saying it does.  So perhaps something does need to be done to the pads to make them work consistently.  I recall one post somewhere, where someone suggested it was because the rubber contact pad has different resistance properties to a microswitch, but in this case i would have thought that no buttons or directions on a pad would work reliably.

I have a 6 button megadrive pad and when I play sf2 etc.. the 2 buttons that work do the same thing

[Coolhand]

I have a 6 button megadrive pad and when I play sf2 etc.. the 2 buttons that work do the same thing

Is that the WHDload version though?

Like i said, a lot of people here have reported issues with that software, issue that they don't get with the disk version.

Banshee AGA is another one, "C" on the pad should activate a special weapon but it works about once per level, and only right at the start of the level, then the button is dead and you have to hit spacebar instead. weird stuff...  Not sure if it helps if the copy is registered, I haven't got round to that yet but some games are restricted/unplayable until you pay.

[Coolhand]

Don't most Amiga games just use one button though ? I come from a c64 background so seriously asking..

yeah most are only single button, the most comprehensive controller would be a CD32 pad, or something fully compatible with it....

most games are single button (with up to jump, fire as fire for example, like the 64 games)

some games support one more button, like SF2, Banshee.

CD32 games may support more buttons, depending on title, but you can't use all those without an actual CD32 pad or a proper adapter for something like a Ps2 pad.

[royalcrown]

Thanks coolhand, IMO the best joystick is the Wico red bat, as good as any pad for C= games or atari games.

[ChaosLord]

I have played many 2-button games on my real Amiga using Sega-compatible controllers I bought for $10.00 each from Toys R Us and they all worked perfectly.

I used to collect all the 2-button games back in 80s and 90s.

Please note that I was not using WHDload as no WHDload game has ever worked on any of my Amigas.

I was using the games on real floppy disks.

I am not fond of floppy disks or anything.  Just saying that games work reliably when played that way.

You can buy a virtual floppy drive with GBs of storage that way u don't have to muck about with thousands of floppies.  I think it is called HxC Floppy Emulator or something like that.  I don't have one but I would like to get one.  I just have thousands of things to do all at the same time...

[royalcrown]

I have played many 2-button games on my real Amiga using Sega-compatible controllers I bought for $10.00 each from Toys R Us and they all worked perfectly.

I used to collect all the 2-button games back in 80s and 90s.

Please note that I was not using WHDload as no WHDload game has ever worked on any of my Amigas.

I was using the games on real floppy disks.

I am not fond of floppy disks or anything.  Just saying that games work reliably when played that way.

You can buy a virtual floppy drive with GBs of storage that way u don't have to muck about with thousands of floppies.  I think it is called HxC Floppy Emulator or something like that.  I don't have one but I would like to get one.  I just have thousands of things to do all at the same time...

That HxC is on my birthday list, that and a Wico red bat ! as far as WHLoad, frankly it looks a pain in the ass to set up, gonna try it though until HxC time !

[ChaosLord]

I have played many 2-button games on my real Amiga using Sega-compatible controllers I bought for $10.00 each from Toys R Us and they all worked perfectly.

I used to collect all the 2-button games back in 80s and 90s.

Please note that I was not using WHDload as no WHDload game has ever worked on any of my Amigas.

I was using the games on real floppy disks.

I am not fond of floppy disks or anything.  Just saying that games work reliably when played that way.

You can buy a virtual floppy drive with GBs of storage that way u don't have to muck about with thousands of floppies.  I think it is called HxC Floppy Emulator or something like that.  I don't have one but I would like to get one.  I just have thousands of things to do all at the same time...

Oops I need to clarify something:

The controllers I bought and have used all these decades were Sega Genesis compatible controllers.  Kinda flat, have 6 buttons + a dpad.  The Sega Genesis was known as the Sega Megadrive in Europe.  Sega Genesis was the sequel to the "Sega Master System".  I have never used any Sega Master System controllers and I don't know ottomh if they are compatible or not.  I assume they are compatible but I have not actually used them.

[carvedeye]

Well I have just tried ssf2 and I can confirm that my Sega mega drive 6 button controller does indeed have a 2 button function, ssf2 is installed to my hdd with whdload as well

[paul1981]

Don't most Amiga games just use one button though ? I come from a c64 background so seriously asking..

Yes, there's not many Amiga games that support two button joysticks.

[paul1981]

Please note that I was not using WHDload as no WHDload game has ever worked on any of my Amigas.

I wonder what's so special about your Amiga? Is it SFS? :laugh1:

Seriously though, it's a shame you can't get WHDLoad to work for you as it's so convenient whenever you fancy a retro sesh... over 2000 games ready to run from Workbench or your games launcher. Have you ever thought about giving it another go?
My only gripe with WHDLoad is some crappy slaves, and slaves that require a 68020 even when the game is originally an A500 game. HxC would be better in this respect, and I might just get one one day, although there's no way I'll be removing the floppy drive. An Amiga has to have a floppy drive!

[mrknight]

Master System and Mega Drive controllers are compatible in Amiga, but at the same time they are not. Let me explain...

Amiga power the joysticks with pin 7 and Sega power on pin 5. So why does the Sega pads work on Amiga? The answer is that Amiga also have a +5 voltage on pin 5. This pin is used for steering wheels and such. It's essentially reading an analogue signal like the PC gameport (do you remember those?). You can not draw as much current from pin 5 as you can from pin 7. Maybe this is the reason why some people have blown the CIA?

What happens when a Mega Drive drive controller is connected to an Amiga is that the Amiga power pin 7 is acting as the Select signal for Mega Drive and will output button B and C as Amiga button 1 and 2.

What you should do to do things right is to open the Sega controller and swap the wires so the controller is powered from pin 7 instead.

Please see these pinouts for reference:

Amiga:
http://www.allpinouts.org/index.php/Mouse/Joystick_Amiga_9_pin

Master System:
http://www.allpinouts.org/index.php/SegaMaster_System_%28SMS%29_and_MegaDrive_joystick

Mega Drive:
http://pinouts.ru/Game/genesiscontroller_pinout.shtml

[ChaosLord]

I wonder what's so special about your Amiga? Is it SFS? :laugh1:

Seriously though, it's a shame you can't get WHDLoad to work for you as it's so convenient whenever you fancy a retro sesh... over 2000 games ready to run from Workbench or your games launcher. Have you ever thought about giving it another go?

Yes I have.  After years of each WHDLoad game crashing on me after a few mins of play I read a news item where WHDLoad finally noticed "Oh hey, we have a bug that blows up the computer if the user has ever used the internet in their whole entire life (like say 10 years ago but no cable is connected anymore)".  Doh!   So it might work for me now that I know to completely quit, exit and disable Miami.

My only gripe with WHDLoad is some crappy slaves, and slaves that require a 68020 even when the game is originally an A500 game.

And other ones where the original game works on the 060 perfectly and installs to HD perfectly but the WHDLoad version mysterious does not work on 060 at all.  Say what?  (Hired Guns)

 HxC would be better in this respect, and I might just get one one day, although there's no way I'll be removing the floppy drive. An Amiga has to have a floppy drive!

I want an HxC for sure....  its just that...  I want to play some old gamez but don't have the time or energy...  I got gamez to code and monsters to mash and stuff.   Too many gamez and not enuff timez

[ChaosLord]

Master System and Mega Drive controllers are compatible in Amiga, but at the same time they are not. Let me explain...

Amiga power the joysticks with pin 7 and Sega power on pin 5. So why does the Sega pads work on Amiga? The answer is that Amiga also have a +5 voltage on pin 5. This pin is used for steering wheels and such. It's essentially reading an analogue signal like the PC gameport (do you remember those?). You can not draw as much current from pin 5 as you can from pin 7. Maybe this is the reason why some people have blown the CIA?

What happens when a Mega Drive drive controller is connected to an Amiga is that the Amiga power pin 7 is acting as the Select signal for Mega Drive and will output button B and C as Amiga button 1 and 2.

What you should do to do things right is to open the Sega controller and swap the wires so the controller is powered from pin 7 instead.

Please see these pinouts for reference:

Amiga:
http://www.allpinouts.org/index.php/Mouse/Joystick_Amiga_9_pin

Master System:
http://www.allpinouts.org/index.php/SegaMaster_System_%28SMS%29_and_MegaDrive_joystick

Mega Drive:
http://pinouts.ru/Game/genesiscontroller_pinout.shtml

Thank you for your explanation.

I hereby award you:
Best Message of the Year Award!

[psxphill]

What you should do to do things right is to open the Sega controller and swap the wires so the controller is powered from pin 7 instead.

Or get two 9 pin connectors, one male and one female and wire them up 1:1 apart from pin 5 & 7 which you swap.
 
Amiga Format published that in the 90's with code for reading the extra buttons.

[mrknight]

I hereby award you:
Best Message of the Year Award!

Thank you for that! I did some rewiring last months so it's still fresh in my head. The six button Mega Drive controllers are a bit more complicated since they seem to use the timing of the Select signal to read the X, Y and Z buttons. I can't find the link to that article right now...

Or get two 9 pin connectors, one male and one female and wire them up 1:1 apart from pin 5 & 7 which you swap.

I got a DB9 gender change shell for the very same reason. I did my rewiring on some cheap Mega Drive look alike pads that I got 2 of for ~$6 from eBay. Didn't want to rewire my real controllers. I will make a converter for those.

In fact, I bought an AVR programmer and some AVRs not long ago. With this I should be able to read all the buttons from a 6 button Mega Drive controller. And if I add some switches on the converter I can remap buttons and such. I think this project is more realistic than the 2MB chip RAM mod I asked about in another thread.

[som99]

Or get two 9 pin connectors, one male and one female and wire them up 1:1 apart from pin 5 & 7 which you swap.
 
Amiga Format published that in the 90's with code for reading the extra buttons.

This is what I do, I also allways rewire the dpad up button to a unused button and put a switch so you can disable the dpads up button, this helps a lot because some games are just plain awkward to jump with dpad up easy to by misstake press up while going left/right one some gamepads.

Easy and works great.

A nice on off switch for the dpad up and button 2 is used as up (jump) instead, Master systems dpad needs this since it's a horrible dpad.


Some easy wireing. Cut traces and wire on


and another on/off switch fitting good.