Vic-20 "Light Gun" Game

[otacon]

Hi All,

I just received my first Commodore Vic-20 yesterday, and I have been learning some 6502 coding in the last couple weeks. I was looking for a game project and came by an idea after I realized the paddle controllers are two potentiometers that share one joystick port.

Idea: Light Gun Shooting Game

A couple years ago I ordered two Samco gun kits and built one of them for my arcade machine and it works well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g8y9xYrDiE

Based on that project I can build my second Samco light gun (Basically uses Wii tech and not a real light gun), but instead of passing the data to the computer as a usb mouse location I would change the design to control two digital potentiometers used like two paddle controllers hooked into one port in the Vic-20. One potentiometer would be read as the x axis and the other as the y axis in the game.

I have ordered some digital potentiometers from Aliexpress, so I can start doing some tests. I am concerned the digital potentiometer may not have the response needed for the game, but we will see when they come in.

Can you think of any reason why this project would not work? Otherwise, I am going to start the research and development phase.

[Mike]

Hi!

The digital pots should span the same resistance (range) as those in the paddles (IIRC somewhat in the range of 300K) and they should also be able to cope with 5 Volts.

Other than that, you might want to check the function of your setup with my Paddlescope.

Greetings,

Michael

P.S. Oh - and welcome on Denial!

[otacon]

Thanks Mike! That program should save me time while I am testing.

[JonBrawn]

When using "real" pots they are supposed to be 470K, one end connected to +5V, the other end left free (not 0V) and the wiper goes to the DB9 on the VIC. Be aware that there will be a huge amount of jitter in the values read from the VIC

Jon.