W!iZard! This is Awesome Sir! Well Done. Still have my Christmas '89 7800, I need to Restore is and Update it, looking for ideas. New Sub; Dryden, Mich
To make a set of paddles switchable between atari and commodore standards use a double gang 500k pot wired with both gangs in series and add a switch to bypass one gang of the pot.
I bet if you could use a lower resistance potentiometer with a proper sized resistor inline you could get these things to be super sensitive with a full range of motion. Nice build! Pull out your trusty ohm meter and find the min/max resistance. The specs must be online for OEM paddles.
Absolutely -- I've been meaning to do this very suggestion! A while ago I read on an AtariAge.com forum that the typical range that many games use is on the order of ~300K; someone actually documented the ranges for all the paddle games! So, all we need is a potentiometer that's close to 300K and a series resistor to set the "zero" value to right starting point.
I was very disappointed that the C64 version of Arkanoid II dropped paddle support in favor of mouse control. And I've always wished the Amiga Breakout style games supported using paddles. I hate playing Breakout style games with a mouse.
Thank you for the feedback! I always thought that potentiometers and rheostats are basically the same thing. Admittedly, I had to look this up and it seems that while functionally similar, some rheostats have only two terminals, so you can't measure both increasing/decreasing resistance (and the complement) simultaneously.
These paddles are fully compatible with the C64. I've got some ideas for C64 videos too (coming soon!), which I'll unfortunately need to run on an emulator. I sold all my C64 gear just over 10 years ago and with I still had it :)
Amazing great paddles
W!iZard!
This is Awesome Sir! Well Done. Still have my Christmas '89 7800, I need to Restore is and Update it, looking for ideas.
New Sub; Dryden, Mich
To make a set of paddles switchable between atari and commodore standards use a double gang 500k pot wired with both gangs in series and add a switch to bypass one gang of the pot.
neat 💖
i might have to do something similar for the bally astrocade
resistor values are different obv
Nice! Thanks for the video
I bet if you could use a lower resistance potentiometer with a proper sized resistor inline you could get these things to be super sensitive with a full range of motion. Nice build! Pull out your trusty ohm meter and find the min/max resistance. The specs must be online for OEM paddles.
Absolutely -- I've been meaning to do this very suggestion! A while ago I read on an AtariAge.com forum that the typical range that many games use is on the order of ~300K; someone actually documented the ranges for all the paddle games! So, all we need is a potentiometer that's close to 300K and a series resistor to set the "zero" value to right starting point.
I was very disappointed that the C64 version of Arkanoid II dropped paddle support in favor of mouse control. And I've always wished the Amiga Breakout style games supported using paddles. I hate playing Breakout style games with a mouse.
Steering wheel controller could also be created with a similar setup.
Warlords = best Atari paddle game
This is one of my favorite Atari 2600 games, mainly due to the 4-player multiplayer nature.
I wonder if it's possible to make a paddle controller using hall effect instead of pots
What's the difference between a potentiometer and a rheostat? Good video though. I learned a lot.
Thank you for the feedback! I always thought that potentiometers and rheostats are basically the same thing. Admittedly, I had to look this up and it seems that while functionally similar, some rheostats have only two terminals, so you can't measure both increasing/decreasing resistance (and the complement) simultaneously.
Do one on the old commodore 64!
These paddles are fully compatible with the C64. I've got some ideas for C64 videos too (coming soon!), which I'll unfortunately need to run on an emulator. I sold all my C64 gear just over 10 years ago and with I still had it :)