Re:Retro

SNES/NES/PC Arcade controller

by alewing on February 9th, 2006

Have you ever wanted to fashion a bespoke arcade controller to ameliorate your favorite retro games system?

Have you ever just wanted to use one, but are in a fortunate enough position to have a friend who is well versed in electronics and could create one for your use if provided with the appropriate schematics?

Well you’re in luck friend… Raphael Assénat has got you covered!

Since a snes gamepad is nothing more than a 16 bit wide parallel load shift register, I build my controller circuit using 2 74ls165. An inverter was needed to change the polarity of the latch (74ls165 latch input is active low, snes uses active high..). I first used a 74ls04, but replaced it by a transistor/2 resistors combination later.

That’s right! All that nonsense means you can turn this:

Into this:

If only everything in life were this simple…

Heat up your soldering iron and head on over to Raphnet! Just remember to put the soldering iron down before reaching for your mouse…

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POSTED IN: Mods, NES, Nintendo, PC, People, SNES