Aren't you tired of the cheaply made PC gamepads that use cheap parts, feel cheap, play cheap but are not at all cheap? Don't you miss the old days at the arcade, where you spent twenty bucks in quarters for one afternoon of playing and didn't regret it? Well, I do, so I built my own arcade stick for home use. It wasn't that hard, either. If you've touched a soldering iron before (even just briefly), there's no stopping you. Here are a few pictures and some info.
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The PsyStick - Long forgotten joys of gaming return I love the blackness of it all. I wanted to call it "UltraBlackBlack" first, but I heard someone else already used this name for some WinAmp skin or something. I shouldn't have taken it to work that one day.. I was offered $50 for building one ;-) This thing is so black you can't count the buttons. Though if you labeled them, you could even configure the stick to play online poker or other digitized casino games. It has four buttons, but the inside is prepared to handle eight, so I could add and map buttons for the all keyboard shortcuts you need in those games. In order for that to work, you'd need keyboard emulator for joysticks and pads, such as Xpadder on Windows or QJoyPad on Linux. This has a great side effect: You can also map buttons to play all sorts of Flash games using the joystick, if you like, and turn e.g. Newgrounds into a free Flash arcade. By the way, this case is just a standard-issue Eurocontainer you can get at any department store. I wanted to use a better box, even make my own one, first. The cool case I bought was three millimeters too small for the stick to fit in and I didn't have the time or skill to build my own, so I'm stuck with this monster for now. |
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Peeking inside Here you can see what drives this thing. It's a fairly normal SNES joypad from the old days. I still have two or three of those around, and even if you don't have one, they're easy to find on eBay or in a bargain bin at a games store. The stick is a Happ Controls Super Joystick. You can switch this one from 8-way to 4-way operation, that's why I chose it. The pushbuttons are Happ Competition buttons. Not only the best value for money you can get, they're the very best buttons you can get, period. That's why many, many arcades use Happ Controls parts. You'll have exactly the same setup as your arcade, imagine that.. Even the clicking noises the microswitches make sound beautiful :) |
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Some action Here you can't really see the stick in action. The glare on the monitor is just too strong, but you can almost make out Truxton/Tatsujin, one of my all-time favorite shooters. With this stick it's absolutely impossible to tell the difference between playing at an arcade or at home. Especially if I put the computer's video output on the TV screen. If you look closely you can see the SNES -> PC interface I built on the computer under the table. I gutted a SNES Multitap to make it. This way up to four people can play using regular SNES controllers. |
Here's what you'll need to build a replica of my joystick.
- A Eurocontainer (you'd be better off building a real case though)
- 1 Happ Controls Super Joystick (can be ordered online, and fast)
- 4 Happ Controls Competition Pushbuttons
- 1 SNES joypad to gut
- 5 standard signal (1N914) diodes
- 4 screws to mount the stick. Choose ones which have a smooth head so they don't interfere with playing.
- A few yards of (minimum) 5-wire cable. You can find this at an electronics store
- Soldering iron and solder
- A parallel port connector (DB25, male) and matching case
- A few yards of telephone wire (copper) to solder the stick and the buttons to the joypad. Alternatively, you can use stranded wire if that's more your style
- Collection of standard tools like screwdrivers, wrenches etc.
- A Dremel tool (optional but very useful)
- If you're using Windows 95 or 98, DirectPad Pro by the guys at ZipLabel.com. This is your driver. (NOTE: This link points to my mirror of the file, not the official download page. It seems to have disappeared from the web entirely)
- If you're using Linux, the Linux Joystick Driver
- Sorry, this stick can't be used on Mac OS because Macs don't have parallel ports :(
- The schematics of the parallel port interface for SNES joypads
- An Emulator that supports DirectPad Pro, the Linux Joystick Driver or the SNES parallel port interface (All DirectX emulators, XMAME and many SNES emulators for Linux, ZSNES etc.)
Once you have this stuff, you're all set. Don't worry, this looks a lot worse than it really is. When you're ordering from Happ, don't just order one stick and four buttons. I ordered 3 sticks and 16 buttons, for example. First off, you'll have replacement parts if something breaks (not very likely), secondly the guys at Happ Controls deserve it. They make real, honest, almost indestructible products and sell them at extremely low prices. Plus, their customer support is great and shipping is fast.
How to build one - Yeah, how DO I build one?
Don't look at me :)
I found the most valuable information in the Build Your Own Arcade Controls FAQ. That's a very well maintained and up to date website, and an invaluable resource if you're thinking about building your own stick. SNES sticks are just now establishing themselves, so you might not find that much information about them.
The most popular way to build a stick is still the "keyboard hack", but it has vastly more disadvantages than advantages. It's compatible with anything because it uses a keyboard, but that's the only area where it's better than the SNES trick. With a keyboard hack, you can't press more than three or four buttons at the same time. Something that make splaying fighting games or other more complicated titles impossible. Plus, it's very tricky to set up. You need to make your own keyboard matrix and soldering is very hard compared to the joypad method.
Yeah, I'm biased ;)
If you have very specific questions about how I built my stick, feel free to contact me. But for general information, look in the FAQ and post to the forum there. You're much more likely to receive a useful answer.
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