I have got used to the fact that my vic's control port doesn't work. However, today I downloaded Dragonwing and for some reason I tried it with joystick.. IT WORKED. I was amazed.. then I tried Omega Race and it still worked
I suspected that the reason might be in my new 1541 - I unplugged it and the joystick didn't work.
Now I posted this mainly because I'm happy that it works but I'm also curious if someone could explain this?
A puzzle for ya
Moderator: Moderators
I'm not sure I can answer your questions, but there's been three reasons why my joystick has not worked in the past:
1) datasette play button still pressed down. Once released everything works fine.
2) broken contacts. A lot of wiggling to remove and install controllers causes the solder of the joystick port to come away from the motherboard. I had to remove the motherboard and re-touch all the solder points for the joystick port pins.
3) old joysticks in which the copper sleeves inside holes in the female connector have become enlarged - thereby not making contact with the pins in the male connector. In this case a very gentle squeezing of the whole plug on the end of the joystick with a pair of pliers compresses these copper sleeves enough that they make snug contact again.
1) datasette play button still pressed down. Once released everything works fine.
2) broken contacts. A lot of wiggling to remove and install controllers causes the solder of the joystick port to come away from the motherboard. I had to remove the motherboard and re-touch all the solder points for the joystick port pins.
3) old joysticks in which the copper sleeves inside holes in the female connector have become enlarged - thereby not making contact with the pins in the male connector. In this case a very gentle squeezing of the whole plug on the end of the joystick with a pair of pliers compresses these copper sleeves enough that they make snug contact again.
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eslapion
- ultimate expander
- Posts: 5458
- Joined: Fri Jun 23, 2006 7:50 pm
- Location: Canada
- Occupation: 8bit addict
Both the joysticks and the 1541 connect to he 6522 VIA chips in the VIC.
Now, the 6522s use NMOS technology which mostly consists of FET transistors to pull down and pull-up resistors. If some of the resistors failed in one of the 6522 then it can only pull down and some external source of power would be needed to generate the pull up effect.
Now, the 1541 is known to feed a small amount of power to the VIC into the serial (IEC) port and that had a very interesting effect on a few of the early Ultimate Expanders.
Anyways, I suspect replacing the 6522s with new ones would fix the problem.
Be aware that these chips are still being produced by the Western Design Center.
Now, the 6522s use NMOS technology which mostly consists of FET transistors to pull down and pull-up resistors. If some of the resistors failed in one of the 6522 then it can only pull down and some external source of power would be needed to generate the pull up effect.
Now, the 1541 is known to feed a small amount of power to the VIC into the serial (IEC) port and that had a very interesting effect on a few of the early Ultimate Expanders.
Anyways, I suspect replacing the 6522s with new ones would fix the problem.
Be aware that these chips are still being produced by the Western Design Center.
Be normal.