Dragon joysticks

[admin]

I can't do much "serious work" on my D32 since I have no joysticks for it. Since the Dragon uses anologue joysticks, is it possible to just put a DIN plug on a typical PC joystick or are there other values expected by the Dragon?

I've seen old adverts for adapters to use Atari-style digital joysticks. Does anyone know how such an adapter is built? Using a TAC-2 seems much more comfortable than some PC stick made for flight simulators.

[sixxie]

I can't do much "serious work" on my D32 since I have no joysticks for it. Since the Dragon uses anologue joysticks, is it possible to just put a DIN plug on a typical PC joystick or are there other values expected by the Dragon?

Old PC joysticks should be fine with new connectors on the cable, new ones would all be USB I guess.

I've seen old adverts for adapters to use Atari-style digital joysticks. Does anyone know how such an adapter is built? Using a TAC-2 seems much more comfortable than some PC stick made for flight simulators.

Here's a circuit a CoCo user put up for one (for Dragon just omit the second firebutton to pin 6):



All it does is have the normal input voltage per axis be supply voltage divided by 2, and use the 4066 (Analogue Switch) to pull it high or low (which you could also do with a bunch of transistors).

I think if I were making one I'd want two "return" voltages, so a return from pushing the joystick left gave a left-of-centre value, and return from pushing right a right-of-centre value: games like Shock Trooper become a lot more playable like that.