Using a CD32 joypad with a PC and WinUAE?

[StevenJGore]

Hi,

Is it possible to use a genuine Commodore Amiga CD32 joypad with a PC (using a serial or USB adapter or something similar) in WinUAE, including support for all buttons? I believe that WinUAE will work with any joypad that displays in "Game Controllers" in Windows Control Panel, so I guess the question is whether a suitable adapter exists?

I've tried Google searching without success.

Cheers!
Steve.

[NightShade737]

The Catweasel PCI would essentially work as that has 2 Joystick ports, but you would need drives for them, and I am not sure if they exist yet...

[redrumloa]

LINK

CATWEASEL MK3 (PCI)
-------------------

Emulated:

- Zorro2 board. You can use multidisk.device to access Catweasel's floppy drive.
- Keyboard port. Keyboard is automatically detected and used.
- Joystick ports. Joystick ports are automatically used.

[StevenJGore]

Cool! I'd heard of the Catweasel before, but I never really realised what it did. :-)

From Amiga Hardware:

Unlike the earlier versions of the Catweasel, this version also includes two SUB D-9 digital joystick ports, the exact same ports as used for mice and joysticks on the Amiga, Atari and countless other computers and consoles...  

...The Catweasel Mk-III is designed to be used in both Amigas and PC's, however it is not clear whether all available features would work in both machines.

From Power Computing:

Catweasel MK3 Zorro/PCI Flipper £79.95

A little bit on the expensive side! But if it would definitely work with all CD32 buttons, then I would consider buying one. Anybody know? Otherwise, I may opt for the second best thing... a PC USB adapter for Playstation 2 controllers. :-D

Steve.

[Ilwrath]

A little bit on the expensive side! But if it would definitely work with all CD32 buttons, then I would consider buying one.

I highly doubt the Catweasel works properly with a CD32 joypad.  It *MAY* be able to work with them in the future, but implementation of the joystick port on that card is a tricky piece of hardware to handle.  I don't totally understand how the CD32 joypad implemented the extra buttons and such.  But the Catweasel does not implement any hardware counters, (such as would be used on a mouse) so implementing the CD32 controller mode may involve emulating a counter, which is rather processor heavy.

[desborough]

> a PC USB adapter
You can pick one of these up for £7 from play.com, it works great with UAE, just a little bit cheaper as well :lol:

[CaptainN]

Greetings I searched the website looking for infomation on getting a real CD32 Gamepad working with a Catweasel MKIV and I found this old thread.

I realize this is an old thread but I was wondering if anyone has figured out if this works for them with the latest WinUAE?

I am using WinUAE version 1.3.1 from Cloanto's Amiga Forever set.

Catweasel drivers CWMK42000.zip (latest downloaded a few days ago from ami.ga)

I have been trying for the last few months to get my 1st & 3rd party CD32 gamepads to function correctly. It seems that the Catweasel only treats the controller as a regular Amiga joystick.

I am trying to use these controllers to play CD32 games in WinUAE but I cannot seem to get all of the buttons to be seen by WinUAE.

According to the readme :

Compatible with CD32 pads
The game controllers of the Amiga CD32 can now also be used on the Catweasel. A special capability of the classic Amigas (and therefore also of the CD32) made these pads exclusive for this computer, if connected to other computers, not all buttons of the pad could be used. Technically speaking: Even the potentiometer-pins of the digital joystick ports can be programmed as outputs on the Catweasel MK4.


It kind of implies that if you connect a CD32 pad to the Catweasel it should recognize the controller and all of its buttons.

Has anyone gotten all of the buttons to work on a CD32 gamepad and WinUAE, if so how did you get it going?

I dropped an email to Jens group to ask this same question and also to request that they may wish to make their driver show up as a game controller in the Control Panels so it can be used for WinUAE, VICE, Stella and many other systems as well.

Any help anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated.

 :-?

[CaptainN]

@ALL

Greetings I got a response from Jens today, big thanks to Jens and his team for getting back so quickly to me and for being so responsive.

Short answer is that CD32 pads to not work fully as of yet, but it is on the plate for his team to do.

Just wanted to update this link for anyone who may be interested.

=-=-=-=--===-=
>I wanted to ask a question about the CD32 gamepad support in WinUAE?

We don't even have the full mouse support, so CD32 has to wait a little.

>I have been trying for the last few months to
>get my 1st & 3rd party CD32 gamepads to function
>correctly. It seems that the Catweasel only
>treats the controller as a regular Amiga joystick.

Correct - the CD32 gamepad with it's additional
buttons needs additional programming that the
current drivers do not support. Don't worry, it's
on the (fiarly long...) to-do list.

>It would be great if the Catweasel drivers can
>show up as a game controller in the Windows
>Control Panel as a Windows joystick, this would
>make things easier since Catweasel will not have
>to be coded into each application and we can use
>the joysticks for WinVice, Stella, and many many others.

Basic code for that is already in the Windows
drivers, but it doesn't work yet. The bad thing
is that this kind of stuff is hardly documented
for the Windows operating system, so it's more
like "trial and error" rather than clean
programming. The worst thing about Windows is
it's hardly available documentation. Amiga is a lot better in that
regard.

ciao,
--
Jens Schönfeld