Dynapoint GameStar: 1993 NES to PC Keyboard Adapter
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ย. 2024
- Well this is a bit odd: a programmable adapter box that converts Nintendo Entertainment System gamepads to a 5-pin AT connection! So you can use NES controllers through a PC keyboard port.
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● Download an image of the utilities disk here:
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For anyone interested, here's a disk image of the software that this thing came with:
archive.org/details/GameStarUtilities
i love how you always do this. i have zero use for this and i still appreciate the gesture.
Huge props for uploading this. Maybe put the link in the description incase youte overhauls the comment system?
THANK YOU for this. Preservation is always important.
Thank you above all else for every instance of uploading these old drivers and software to the Archive. You are doing an immeasurable service for those of us who stumble across these old perhiperals that are useless without software.
There are so many cards and peripherals out there that have not had their software properly preserved, so doing so is of utmost priority. I have a Studio Magic ISA capture card I will probably never be able to use as the drivers have been forgotten and faded out of existence.
Did the one from the mailbag work too?
I'm always amazed that you can find this obscure, old stuff still in box. There must be warehouses, basements and attics all across America full of old PC tack.
And thank goodness for that. New old stock is the best!
It's kind of like a treasure hunt.
And not that I would recommend searching, but I bet that even most landfill tech is salvageable. Monitors are probably the least so, but computers and old stock are
sometimes okay or even working still.
There was a really high demand for plastic with a grey/purple hue in the early 90's.
First time i saw a US SNES, i thought i was a cheap copy - the EU version looks way different and in my opinion better.
The PAL SNES looks way too much like an appliance. The US SNES looks like a toy. It's odd though that the PAL version which is only grey has the colorful controller buttons. The US version should have had the colorful buttons and the PAL should have had the US style.
it eventually came down to the sgi indigo workstations
www.sgistuff.net/hardware/systems/images/indigo2-front-1901.jpg
For some reason I've always preferred the purple over the candy colours. I hate bright colours though so could be why.
The PAL design is a carbon copy of the Super Famicom.
That IS the SNES design. The US design is some weird adaptation that came about because they were scared the US market would complain about the actual design.
The 4 colour button layout is a prominent part of SNES game packaging and designs in Europe and Japan. (that same pattern is again seen in the upper right corner of the console itself.)
I don't know why you'd think the PAL design looks like an appliance. It's very clearly a console, and it has a lot of curves, where the US design is all boxes and angles.
But.... Whatever.
The purple controllers match the console. (purple buttons)
It's funny. I love purple in general. It's my favourite colour, yet the US design doesn't work for me at all.
This is a pretty neat little device. I would've loved this as a kid.
I had one. The controls with an NES controller are superior to the likes of the Gravis Gamepad. There's also SNES to parallel port adapters you can make that also blew away the Gravis
Am screaming for such adaptor sothat i can play online games with a controller rather then using a keyboard.
saratov99 thanks 😊. I may do some PC stuff in the future, but for the most part I'll leave that to experts like LGR.
@Joe -- Yes! -- We made DirectPad Pro adapters (SNES -> Parallel Port) back in the mid 90s -- mostly for emulation -- but kept them around for all sorts of games, because the controllers were just plain superior. :D
Look up Joy2Key
Man, "Oddware" that's actually good and really practical. I'm shocked.
Or "Hardweird".
I was inspired to make a similar device. Only it accepts Genesis and SNES pads instead of NES (more buttons).
Sold 40 of those to grateful Vogons. It seems this kind of "oddware" never gone out of style.
Clint's "Duke" voice is the best
Yeah he was spot on haha
It really is, I had to rewind when he mentioned the turbo button in the Duke voice, just to hear it again
Man, every time I watch your videos, at some point my thoughts go to "HOW IS HIS DUKE NUKEM IMPRESSION SO GOOD".
It's ridiculous, man. If someone were making a duke nukem fan creation or something, you would be a shoe in for a John St John sound alike.
I loved mine when I was younger. It was a hardware solution so it just worked all the time. I didn't use the provided controller, since I had an NES controller and an NES Advantage to use with it instead.
This was a decade before it's time. I would've loved this when I started using NES emulators with actual NES controllers in the late nineties, it would've been amazing. Custom mapping through hardware alone is just icing on the cake.
I absolutely love the smooth jazz in the background of your videos. Just makes them more relaxing to watch.
Hey, Rick K., I totally agree with you: that background smooth jazz is just fckn awesome.
I use to see these all the time in stores like Walmart, Target, and heck even a Ross! I can vivdily remember the Target and Walmart verisons costing 50$ while the Ross version was 30$
Thank you!
*$50 *$30
Well, Ross is basically just another thrift store so...
@@BXJ-mi9mm do you say dollars 30 or 30 dollars?
Love Ross
LGR's voice has genuinely helped me with panic attacks. No joke.
"Greetings. And welcome, to an LGR thing."
OMG.... i cant breathe when i have an attack.. this guy's voice calms me down..
He really does have a soothing voice
You're weird
@@thisismyname5657 That's no panic attack. LMAO.
I'd love to have one of those, the idea of plugging a good old NES controller in a '93 PS/2 box into my today computer amuses me
DOS games with an NES controller using original hardware? *Why is this not a thing in my life?!* Holy cow, man.
I fall asleep watching your channel every night (this is a good thing!). I've probably added 24 viewing hours to your clock last week... I find the pace that you release videos exhilarating... and the subjects intriguing and nostalgic alike.
This was a cool episode. I love mapping PC / Keyboard to controller adapters. Was fun to see you giggle at this cool tech. Playing keyboard only computer games with a controller gives it a whole new life.
10:26 - More of the LGR Duke you know you wanted.
I sent this in the mail. Didn't think you'd be able to find this much on it this quickly. So cool to see the thing in action! Makes me want to build a 486 gaming PC that much more...
You have to get your hands on a power glove. DOS games with a power glove. 😂😂😂
ASMR People oh god no
Yes, someone please do this. I'm serious.
**probably crappy Duke Nukem voice** I don't need not stinkin' Power Glove!
I'd love to see MS-DOS Mega Man with a Power Glove.
Good god, no. MS-DOS Mega Man is a huge PITA with just a normal controller, trying it with a Power Glove in non-supported game mode would be an exercise in futility worse than usual.
That's why I loved the Interact 3D Program Pad. It had keyboard pass-through as well as midi port connection, and you basically programmed the buttons for keystrokes.Then later when that dies, the Interact Hammerhead FX.
The Program Pad was my first PC gamepad! Not a bad controller really
poopp
srrey
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I remember having one of them back in 1996/7, worked well for dos games when you config it right, played duke 3d with it
We've sure came along way in terms of PC peripherals. I can now pick a Dualshock 4 and connect it to my PC over bluetooth. I don't even have a motherboard box filled with drivers CDs and floppies.
I had no idea that this kind of thing existed for so long. When I saw the first Playstation2 to USB adapter back in 2001, I bought one immediately. The Sony Dualshock was always my favorite kind of controller.
2:14 The US automotive industry had a way of separating "Made in The USA" from "Final Assembly In The USA" back in the 1980s, and continues today. They did it because they were angry about Honda building a factory in the USA and were angry that Toyota and Nissan would soon do the same thing. The car companies then decided that cars that were considered "Made in the USA" would be allowed to have a "1" as the first digit of the VIN number, and cars that were "Final Assembly In The USA" would be given a "4" or "5" as the first digit of the VIN.
Nothing beats a good product that does what it does well. No trying to be everything, no stupid add ons. Just a PC to NES adapter with good usage. Well reviewed!
I feel a lot of people take the NES controller for granted. I always felt it a little uncomfortable with those sharp edges, but the D-pad and the buttons are downright perfect and the build quality was superb.
Back in the Nintendium days. Things were indestructible.
I was born in '87 and ended up getting a Top Loader as my first NES....I've always thought the dogbone controller is amazing, you don't often hear people bring it up but it's a great controller
This is pretty amazing for something from the early 90's, the fact that you can just set the key/button bindings on the fly like that using the box is so awesome. What a great find!
Great and obvious controller for NESticle! The programming style with the box is like an pre-usb x-arcade stick.
10:27 that Duke impression is ON POINT
Woooow this is something i was looking for for years, instead of buying usb controllers or usb controller adaptors, you can just use this fantastic adaptor to convert nes control input signals into keyboard signals to make them work with all games,wich is very ideal for games wich don’t support controllers but only a keyboard,well with this amezing adaptor wich emulates the keyboard,now you can finaly use a nes controller or nes advantage for it etc,,,
There should be such adaptor to emulate all types of controllers to keyboard buttons, no more hassle with software drivers ,just plug & plug.
This is absolutely FANTASTIC👍👍👍👍
Yep, all the conversion is done in hardware in the little box. No stupid drivers to mess about with. It just works!
Simon Tay ,do you know any today’s nes usb adaptor wich does this???
because i hate to install drivers for it and worry about if games does support it whether or not.
So yeah am searching usb controller adaptors wich emulates the keyboard,rather then using drivers for it,
THX.
I liked cause i just ordered a raspberry pi 3b gameboy color ( your profile pic)
Your duke nikem voice is great, way to go brother. Thabks for the multitude of magnificent reviews
This feels like an oddware, but without more history about the background of the company and such, it feels better as an LGR thing for me.
That was my feeling as well, didn't really have the "meat" to make it a full-on Oddware. Plus, what it's doing isn't entirely odd or obsolete, just a bit of an usual approach.
Looking back, I know it isn't anything special, but Jill of the Jungle will always hold a place in my heart. That and One Must Fall 2097 were the first games I bought with my allowance money.
They're incredibly special games to those of us that experienced them new, for sure
You won my sub just for having an actual AT MS-DOS pc to test this on, as it was meant to be used
You mapped jump and fire backwards on your NES controller.... What kind of monster are you!
Great video again.
Xpadder version 0.0000012
lmao
Vitamin Luther xpadder is so much better then this
run%point.of.joke.dat run%over.head.dat ❤️
Señor Dossier yeah i know but it is ok
And AntiMicro is much better than Xpadder.
Very cool, wish I had one.
And thank you for making the disk image.
I was kinda expecting you to play one of the DOS Megaman games with this.
I guess that is because the Megaman DOS games aren't worth playing. The AVGN showed how even if you had a decent controller, Megaman DOS III is still miserable to play:
AVGN Episode:
th-cam.com/video/Q3iEn5rzMnw/w-d-xo.html
It would have been fun to see him try, schadenfreude and all that,
Megaman III dos was my first Megaman game, and I didn't touch another for years afterwards.
If I remember correctly there is a DOS port of Mega Man X. I guess it just isn't as well known as the more infamous games, especially since Capcom themselves were behind the port.
I did try the DOS Megaman X, but at the time I could only use a keyboard. Years later, I was able to afford a Playstation to USB adapter and I used it with a SNES emulator. I enjoyed it.
OH MY GOD, THE DOS PORTS OF MEGAMAN WERE FUCKING RIDICULOUS. XD
I had one of those, and basically did your whole video as a kid in the 90's wild. I had completely forgot about all this, thanks LGR and Daniel!
Great stuff :)
With your avatar it almost reminds me of a Max Headroom kind of thing for some reason I don't know why I thought that when I saw your avatar?
Where you going for something like that? Please comment.
I had one of these I found at a computer trade show event thing with my dad when I was little. This video reminded me about the controller and the software which for some reason I totally forgot existed. Not sure what I did with it but I still have the adapter around. It needs some serious cleaning but should still work. I loved it for a lot of dos games using an NES controller and more so for DOS NES emulation and just playing NES games that way. Watching this makes me want to get it out again, though I gave up on it for a Microsoft Sidewinder controller and eventually USB things. Loved how simple the device was as opposed to using the midi/game port. Lovely nostalgia thanks for reviewing it and refreshing my memory on it.
Wished I had that adaptor back in the day. Great video Clint!
Lovely Roland speakers, by the way
Psycho Machinery Those speakers are pretty cool looking, huh? Feel like they'd fit in well with my synth setup
It's always awesome seeing Jazz Jackrabbit, Jill of the Jungle and Duke Nukem on LGR. I grew up with those myself, though only the shareware versions.
The controller moulding is the same as the Mystical branded pad made for the X68000 ports of SNK games.
I've been using one of these ever since they released them. I still have one plugged into my current PC. I don't use the software anymore of course, but occasional programming via the built in buttons is fast and easy. To answer your question, the GameStar package was sold for $20 Bitd, if I recall correctly. I picked up a couple of extras at $5 each when they were closed out.
Supposedly, there was also a Genesis controller compatible model of the GameStar, but I've never run across one.
The way you played Jazz with an NES controller reminds me I want to try OpenJazz on my 360.
I love your channel, I recently purchased an IBM PS/1 486DX2 66mhz computer so I can start playing all of my old dos games the way they were meant to be played (as in, the first half the game is trying to get the video card and sound card to both work, then freeing up enough memory to get everything to run). Awesome seeing there are other people out there who really enjoy this type of stuff too!
NES controller and Duke3D... That's half my childhood right there, man.
That's a bit weird since there are more than 10 years apart between the NES release and Duke 3D. So you either got a really late NES or had a really long childhood :)
Hebrew dude- I actually feel the same as him, was a kid in the 80s playing Nintendo and 15 years old when Duke3d came out in 1996 and feel like they're both part of my 'childhood' now. Maybe I was an immature 15 year old lol
Most people tend to include their early teenage years in their childhood אולדסקול
Your joy that comes with the realisation that the joypad just works made this video a great watch :)
If Jazz Jackrabbit taught me anything, it's that all kids ❤ Gravis PC GamePad.
I never had the gamepad, but I did have a gravis gamepad pro years ago. It was the same basic thing, but in a playstation form factor. It was a good controller for what was available at the time, but that dpad was terrible for precise directions. It went diagonal way too easily.
I would of loved this in the early 90's. Currently I play Sega Saturn and arcade game on my pc using a Sega saturn Controller via a Mayflash adapter and it's bloody fantastic!
I use an SNES controller usb since I use the emulator on PC, this product is good for older computers. Playing fighting games and platformers with the usb controller.
I have both SNES and NES USB controller. I use the SNES controller for SNES games and the NES one for NES games.
@@Patrick19833 I just use the SNES controller for both NES and SNES games on my PC. Since most online computer stores mostly have the SNES USB controllers on sale.
@@Markimark151 Amazon has SNES, NES, Genesis, N64, Gamecube, Sega Saturn, and even Atari 2600 USB controllers on sale.
@@Patrick19833 I know, but I just buy the controllers that I prefer playing on, especially I can’t connect too many different controllers on my PC. I hate changing settings.
@@Markimark151 I have USB ports on front of my PC tower. So, it's as easy as changing them on a game console for me.
This is really impressive and I'm happy to see it works well with Jazz Jackrabbit. I absolutely loved that game when I was younger.
Bro. Your Duke nukem voice is on point.
this was actually my first "game pad" for the pc, although i usually just plugged in an nes controller. combining it with emulators and being able to play japanese games and stuff really made me feel like i had entered the future. kids don't appreciate how mind blowing that was in the mid 90's. i also had no idea that it was kind of rare hardware
I discovered ROMs and emulators back in February of 1999. It truly was the happiest time in my life. I had to use a keyboard, but it didn't bother me too much.
I got to play the translated ROM of Final Fantasy 5 and absolutely loved it. Hearing songs from that game instantly takes my mind back to the past.
I also had fun seeing how most Japan-only games sucked and the USA was better off without them.
We had a couple that floated around in my circle of friends. these things we all kinds of fuckawesome to use with Nesticle and many other early emulators and DOS games like Timeslaughter.
So rare for you to review a good product from the 90s. I would have loved to have this as a kid.
I remember seeing this on a store shelf when I was younger.
The price tag was in the $25 to $45 range.
Whether that was the original MSRP or a clearance price, fuck all if I know; I was what, nine when I saw this...? So yeah, since that was after 1993, the original MSRP was likely more, but pretty sure it wasn't ungodly expensive like some devices were that were even more useless, lolz
I had one back in 97! The first and only one I have seen up to this video, thanks, Clint.
Thank you so much for uploading the software. I had bought one sealed since it was the only one available... but when I got it, it didn't have the manual or the software but everything else looked mint and factory wrapped. I think this manufacturer back in the day refurbished their own stuff or had horrible quality control maybe? If it's not too much ask, is it also possible for you to upload a copy of the manual? Thanks again!
I'm more impressed that you recorded your monitor and the refresh didn't completely ruin your recording.
Whish we can turn back time to the good old days...
"I don't need rapid fire hardware"... awesome duke impression!
I actually still have one of these, boxed!!
Will you sell it? 😀
I got goosebumps for some reason when you were playing with the nes controller. That brought me joy lol
The Gravis pad was my solution, and when I bought it in the late 90's it came with Megaman X for PC which blew my mind. Just to learn that the recessed buttons on the pad made the usual charge/dash/jump combo all but impossible.
Friendly Metroid I had the Gamepad Pro
Yup.. pressing the buttons and dpad of the gravis gamepad felt pretty hard and the surface was too slippery.
I wish I had gotten the gravis gamepad with Mega Man X for pc, mine only came with some off brand Genesis 6 button controller ( size of the 3-button but with 6 buttons) that wasn't responsive at all
Yeah, I have really mixed feelings about the Gravis Gamepad. On one hand, for years it was my go-to game pad for all my PC games. On the other hand... it was never that good and I was always aware that it had nothing on "real" controllers from Nintendo and Sega. And that silly screw-in joystick was so useless.
Jason Blalock haha it's amazing what you'll put up with when the are no alternatives.
Man this was awesome! I love these types of accessories that actually work. I love playing Jazz Rabbit with a joypad. If I had this adapter you can easily bet that I'd be using it, very frequently in fact. Now if only I could actually find one.
Assembled in X = "We got big boxes from different Chinese companies and put them in smaller boxes at the facility in X!"
Hey, love your Oddware stuff. This doesn't seem too odd in a growing trend of nostalgic gaming. Thanks for showing this exists!
Try it out with the Power Glove. It's so bad.
I see what you did there.
I got one of these at a thrift store like ten years ago. I saw the NES controller plug, AT keyboard plug, and my thought was "...no way this is what it looks like" but yes it was and wow what a cool contraption. I thought I had the only one left on earth until you mentioned it recently, and I had no idea there's a utility! Thanks for uploading that!
Heh, this reminded me of a parallel port adapter I soldered up and could plug my Atari/C64 controllers into to use them on the pc in Windows.
4:38 - and you have the perfect voice for it so it makes sense that you would like something like that where most people would have just looked past it entirely
kind of like 1993 "joy2key" lol
A hardware Joy2Key, even
Very cool device. Nice to see something was actually made in the timeframe when AT keyboards were commonplace (and meta keys not so much).
My solutions back then were more DIY, using SNESKEY with a hand made parallel port adapter, later switching to DirectPad Pro, then even later PPJoy, using the same adapters. Sadly, the parallel port solution is not exactly viable these days, but nothing has stopped me from just whipping up some code on an ATTINY to do the trick. 😁
The Made or Assembled in the USA has always been pointless but I guess most visable during the mid 80s and 90s (at least in my memory) because of WalMart's Made in America campaign. All pretensions to that have been dropped for obvious reasons.
Actually, you can still find all sorts of products today that say "Assembled (or) Designed (or) Engineered in the U.S.A from material made overseas".
But it isn't as big of a fad as it once was when Wal Mart was basing a lot of its advertising around it like it had been. Sure it is a thing but it isn't the huge marketing campaign it was in the 90s.
Sure, in fact several companies did that in the past and several do it now. I once bought a hard drive that was made in Thailand, but you could see "Mad in the USA" one one chip, "Made in Korea" on another chip, and "Made In Japan" on the othr visible chip. However, the manufacturer never bothered with the whole "Assembled with US components" advertising gimmick.
From what I remember (I can't verify this mind you) it's an import taxes thing, a dodge of duties etc. If they imported the final product to sell it costs more than if you import unfinished products and do final assembly. It's not made in the US but it's priced as if it was.
That's why most things do it, or at least did. At least, that's what I'd heard.
probably for tax reasons.
As a guy growing up in the 90s who went through many terrible quality 3rd party PC controllers, I found this to be a really cool video
Now it's time to use it with a DIN-to-PS/2-to-USB-to-USB Type C adapter!
Dude, back in the day I had a program that would take joypad input from an NES controller hooked up to the parallel port. I had to solder an adapter myself. Found the instructions on the internet, so it had to have been '94 or '95.
One of the reasons this type of thing is so cool, is that an NES controller is a serial device. It's not just every button hooked up to a pin. It sends the state of each button one at a time.
I’m seeing a lot of Epic (Mega)Games love installed on that system :D
Epic Megagames = ❤️
This is actually a really cool product. I had no idea such a thing existed. Thanks for sharing!
Thumbs up for NES D-pad. Still the best. Can't figure how everybody f's it up, still after all these years.
Wasn't it patented until fairly recently?
Nintendo had a patent on their cross-shaped D-pad design, which is why competitors were forced to use different designs.
the only one coming close to the NES d-pad is the D-pad on the very first playstation.... any other console ever fcked up the d-pad :(
I'd say SNES had the best d-pad.
The Nintendo D-pad design was patented (US patent number 4687200, if you're interested) so other companies had to use different designs for theirs
Edit: the patent expired in 2005
You have a FANTASTIC voice for radio!
Great video!
LGR should suggest Awesome Games Done Quick to play Duke Nukem 3D with NES controller next year.
Caarajack or suggest that it just doesn't happen anymore. Feels bad from 2013 man
this is absolutely amazing, its cool how well it works. Today its so common to use a program but to see something work so naturally and easily is just really cool xD
That "assembled in the USA" sticker is similar to how Apple puts "designed by Apple in California" on there products. It makes dumb people think it was made in America even though it was made overseas in a sweatshop.
huawei for the win!!
@@juanruiz787 I'm ordering a Fairphone. I've been burned one too many times by Huawei.
Well, that's neat. You sounded like you were going to rag on this, but it turned out to be a cool little device for its time. I was especially impressed it had actual working plug and play.
try nesticle (nes emulator) with it
ahhhh such a great way to start the week, retro hardware, and LGR
That’s some good woodgrain on that table
They would get much more success if they've sold just an adapter and market it properly. Adapter that have NES, SNES and 9-pin Sega/Commodore/Atari port would be just awesome. It could also have a standard 15-pin PC game port, since joystick support in DOS was just terrible.
This device just does the thing I love the most in DOSBox - the Key Mapper.
That is pretty cool! I have only ever heard of NES to USB and such, I had no idea it existed as early as the pc keyboard port.
So I have an old Gamemon Universal USB Connector (model number FT8D91) and I have had it since '06-'07. It supports GameCube, Xbox and PS1/PS2 controllers and has two additional USB 1.X ports as well. Still using it to this day. :D
As a kid I would have killed for this, as I tended to dislike the cheap or weird feeling that a lot PC gamepads had.
There also was the "Gravis Phoenix" joystick in the 90s, which had a connector between the computer and the keyboard and a software for binding the joystick keys to keyboard commands.
Will it work with a real NES controller?
EDIT: That is what I get for commenting 1/2 way through the video ;)
Yeah i literally said to myself, there is no way he doesn't have an nes controller and if he does there is no way he can NOT try it xD
When he got it out i was GOOD! xD
That's surprisingly neat and It's always nice when things just work without too much hassle.
I interrupted Cobra Kai for this.
Lo Wang you did good
this is really cool, and as a collector of game controllers I'll have to keep my eyes open for one.
Edit: You really should look for a Touch Turbo 360 Controller for the NES(they also made Genesis, and SNES ver.), as it would for sure be an oddware episode since you slide your thumb around on the touchpad instead of using a D-pad. I've had the NES version since i was a kid, and once you get use too using it, it's not a bad controller, but again takes a bit to get use to using.
But what will happen if you daisy chain 2 controller modules , would you have two sets of key setting or something ?
Nikolay Hristov maybe, it might just only use the same commands the nes controller uses.
Seems like you program the adapter dongle. So if you program them separately and daisy chain them together, you should end up with 2 different presets on 2 different controllers. It would be suitable for games played on a split screen (2 players, 1 keyboard). Though who knows whether all that daisy chained hardware would get enough power. And I'm also worried about the nkey rollover, since the adapter acts like a keyboard and the first adapter would have to handle simultaneous inputs from 2 sources.
This would be really awesome to use with the NES Advantage arcade controller. Awesome video!