Hacking Gamecube to Classic Controller Converter 2 questions

[qwertymodo]

Yeah, that's one issue you don't have to deal with for internally modded controllers, which was part of the reason I originally chose to do internal mods for the SNES controllers. Unfortunately, it's far more difficult sourcing OEM GC controllers in good condition (at least consistently so... Ebay's always a gamble) than it is to find GC extension cables. So yeah, just always have the GC controller plugged into the adapter before you plug it in to the Wiimote, and always unplug from the Wiimote before unplugging the GC controller.

 

[bezem]

Another question, for people wanting an adapter: would you prefer the cables to be as long as possible, or shorter? Basically, the GameCube side of the cable is 6 feet long and the Wiimote cable is about 3 feet, so personally, I'd like to make them even lengths and end up with a cable about 6 feet long, but I could go as long as 9, or shorter, if people prefer that... remember that the cable on your controller is already, what, 6 feet for the official cables? So a really long cable might be annoying, I don't know. It's a matter of preference, and I'll leave it up to you.

I think 6 feet would be too much. I personally would love a 'clean' adapter that just plugs into the WiiMote like a MotionPlus and has a GC connector. If this is not possible, I'd say a good max length would be 3 ft (1.5 per cable). As you say, the GC controller itself already has a 6 ft (give or take) cable so adapter cabling doesn't need to be too long.

 

[qwertymodo]

Yeah, I wish I could make an adapter inside a solid block of plastic, like the WM+ passthru adapter. Unfortunately, there's no way I'm going to get a custom case fabricated for such an adapter. It was hard enough as it is finding a plain plastic box for housing the PCB, so unfortunately, short cables is the best I can do. Once I get back to campus and have all of the parts in front of me, I'll try a few different lengths and see what feels right. Maybe something like 3" per cable, 6" total length.

 

[bezem]

I had a feeling that would be the case, but wanted to provide my feedback nonetheless. If 3 ft is the shortest the cable ends can be then that'll work fine in my book; I just think the cables should be as short as possible seeing as we have the length of the GC cable as well. Again, not trying to be picky, just trying to provide honest feedback. This is shaping up to be an exciting project and I look forward to (and appreciate) your work!

 

[GabeCube]

I think 6 feet would be too much. I personally would love a 'clean' adapter that just plugs into the WiiMote like a MotionPlus and has a GC connector. If this is not possible, I'd say a good max length would be 3 ft (1.5 per cable). As you say, the GC controller itself already has a 6 ft (give or take) cable so adapter cabling doesn't need to be too long.

I also prefer shorter cables - I actually got the Japanese white GameCube controllers (I think they were made with the Wii in mind) and they have longer cords than the American purple/orange/black models. For a device that is already strapped to a wireless dongle it would just get too messy.

 

[rctgamer3]

Or was a Dreamcast fanboy.
But that does remind me, using a Wavebird with such an adapter would be hilarious, kind of like the "yo dawg" meme (wireless in your wireless?).

Bought one of Bruno Freitas' Retropad adapters a couple of months ago. Can confirm the WaveBird works, although it required some fiddling with the channels(?), but i eventually got it to work.
(Wii/U>Wiimote>Retropad>Converter cable>Wavebird receiver ----->Wireless Wavebird)

 

[the_randomizer]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...de-controls-to-computers-and-con?ref=category

That's for computers, not consoles, so that link is now moot point. Move along folks, nothing to see here.

And that exposed PCB on the adapter, I hope they cover that up someday.

 

[pwsincd]

That's for computers, not consoles, so that link is now moot point. Move along folks, nothing to see here.

And that exposed PCB on the adapter, I hope they cover that up someday.

Easily connect arcade controls to your favourite consoles and computers with our ground breaking open source device.

i guess you really read the first line .

 

[libertyernie]

That device uses a USB jack, though. PS3 and maybe 360 can use USB joypads, but a Wii U is probably just going to ignore them.

 

[qwertymodo]

Plus there are additional systems supported when KADE is coupled with a low cost adaptor. Systems including Xbox 360, Gamecube, Wii, Dreamcast and many more.

GC/Wii require an adapter, which I suspect is quite similar to the adapter I'm building. In any case, that adapter is for arcade controls... are you really wanting to play SSB with arcade controls? I suppose it could be interesting, but I would imagine it would be rather difficult.

 

[TeeR]

Apparently the ORIGINAL classic controller had pressure triggers but only one game was ever compatible with it (some WiiWare Art Game) so I guess you'll keep GC triggers on Wii U's GameCube if you use the Classic Controller or GameCube to Classic Controller Adapter. I just wonder if it's worth to get one of those as it could make use of any PS1 controllers lying around (although I'd have to get multiple if others wanted to use the same thing).

 

[bootsector]

Huh, what do you know. I could swear I had done that and some other permutations of connections... but now it seems like it worked.

I would still be interested in the adapters, though, because of the analog triggers.

Edit: I think I know what I was doing wrong. I was disconnecting at the GameCube port, instead of directly at the adapter. Duh.

Hey there!

Did you drop a line to the guy who sold you the adapter? It was either myself, if you're an "old" customer, or my friend Roberto (he now builds the adapters and runs the store, I don't sell anything anymore). But I can say that the current customer support is as good as how it used to be when I used to run the store by myself!

So, you guys all want an internal mod for a GC controller with trigger analog support, right?

This beauty here is very tiny, cheap and would come handy because little code change will be necessary:

http://www.tinyosshop.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=187

I will try to add analog trigger support by next week on my Wii RetroPad Adapter, unless qwertymodo has anything working already. The change should be very simple though.

After that, I will release a firmware for the Arduino Pro Mini so you guys can start modding your GC controllers right away!

Cheers,

Bruno "bootsector" Freitas

 

[GabeCube]

Hey there!

Did you drop a line to the guy who sold you the adapter? It was either myself, if you're an "old" customer, or my friend Roberto (he now builds the adapters and runs the store, I don't sell anything anymore). But I can say that the current customer support is as good as how it used to be when I used to run the store by myself!

So, you guys all want an internal mod for a GC controller with trigger analog support, right?

This beauty here is very tiny, cheap and would come handy because little code change will be necessary:

http://www.tinyosshop.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=187

I will try to add analog trigger support by next week on my Wii RetroPad Adapter, unless qwertymodo has anything working already. The change should be very simple though.

After that, I will release a firmware for the Arduino Pro Mini so you guys can start modding your GC controllers right away!

Cheers,

Bruno "bootsector" Freitas

I did, in fact, had a fairly long conversation with him over email. One of the cables had a problem in the way it was assembled and pushed pin #5 down on the adapter - I managed to fix the adapter, but the cable itself seems not to be working. He said he will replace it.

Frankly, I have been doing some testing with it and I got the weirdest result: it SEEMS like there is some sort of "short" in the cable of my GameCube controller, and unless I keep it perfectly stretched (and it's a long one), it keeps giving me crazy input (including repeatedly pressing the Home button). But this ONLY happens through the adapter - if I plug it directly to the Wii GameCube port, it behaves normally, even if I completely wrap the cable around the controller. I thought it might be some contact/short problem on the cable or adapter, but all my testing so far has been inconclusive (this is for the cable that is working, the one that had the bad female contact does not register the controller at all).

In any case, kudos (or should I say "parabéns"?) to all of you guys. It's nice to be able to use older controllers on the Virtual Console games.

 

[bootsector]

I did, in fact, had a fairly long conversation with him over email. One of the cables had a problem in the way it was assembled and pushed pin #5 down on the adapter - I managed to fix the adapter, but the cable itself seems not to be working. He said he will replace it.

Frankly, I have been doing some testing with it and I got the weirdest result: it SEEMS like there is some sort of "short" in the cable of my GameCube controller, and unless I keep it perfectly stretched (and it's a long one), it keeps giving me crazy input (including repeatedly pressing the Home button). But this ONLY happens through the adapter - if I plug it directly to the Wii GameCube port, it behaves normally, even if I completely wrap the cable around the controller. I thought it might be some contact/short problem on the cable or adapter, but all my testing so far has been inconclusive (this is for the cable that is working, the one that had the bad female contact does not register the controller at all).

In any case, kudos (or should I say "parabéns"?) to all of you guys. It's nice to be able to use older controllers on the Virtual Console games.

Please forward the thread you had with Roberto to my email (bootsector at ig dot com dot br). I will take a look on it and build you a new GC extension cable myself for you.

bootsector

 

[qwertymodo]

Apparently the ORIGINAL classic controller had pressure triggers but only one game was ever compatible with it (some WiiWare Art Game) so I guess you'll keep GC triggers on Wii U's GameCube if you use the Classic Controller or GameCube to Classic Controller Adapter. I just wonder if it's worth to get one of those as it could make use of any PS1 controllers lying around (although I'd have to get multiple if others wanted to use the same thing).

Yeah, I have both the original CC and the CCPro, so I'm aware of the CCPro not having the analog triggers. The hope is that if and when tueidj implements Wiimote/CC support in Devolution, that he'll fully support the original CC along with the analog triggers, then my adapters will be fully supported for all GC controller functions in GC games.

 

[bootsector]

Yeah, I have both the original CC and the CCPro, so I'm aware of the CCPro not having the analog triggers. The hope is that if and when tueidj implements Wiimote/CC support in Devolution, that he'll fully support the original CC along with the analog triggers, then my adapters will be fully supported for all GC controller functions in GC games.

I really think you shouldn't bother constructing your own hardware unless the final selling price get cheaper than this:

http://www.tinyosshop.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=187

Otherwise, we should use it since it's small and cheap and source code change will be minimal to get running on it.

bootsector

 

[qwertymodo]

I really think you shouldn't bother constructing your own hardware unless the final selling price get cheaper than this:

http://www.tinyosshop.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=187

Otherwise, we should use it since it's small and cheap and source code change will be minimal to get running on it.

bootsector

That hardware on its own is great for internal mods, so you're right on that account. However, I have a PCB design that would be considerably smaller, and if I had a better way of cutting up PCB's, I could panelize the design and bring down the price considerably, so if there was enough interest, I could go smaller and cheaper. However, I set that idea aside since people seemed to be interested in a cable adapter like the wra but more compact, so that's what I'm going for. I found a nice 40mmx20mmx10mm enclosure for the PCB, and pending actually getting my hands on them for measurement, I already have the PCB laid out and ready to go.

 

[bootsector]

That hardware on its own is great for internal mods, so you're right on that account. However, I have a PCB design that would be considerably smaller, and if I had a better way of cutting up PCB's, I could panelize the design and bring down the price considerably, so if there was enough interest, I could go smaller and cheaper. However, I set that idea aside since people seemed to be interested in a cable adapter like the wra but more compact, so that's what I'm going for. I found a nice 40mmx20mmx10mm enclosure for the PCB, and pending actually getting my hands on them for measurement, I already have the PCB laid out and ready to go.

Good stuff!

Let me know once you have the patches for supporting analog shoulder buttons so I can merge them with the WRA codebase.

Thanks!

bootsector

 

[qwertymodo]

Sure thing. I left half of my stuff back on campus when I left for Christmas break, so I won't be able to test until I get back, but the basic gist is that you're already reading in the GC analog trigger values (you need to modify GCPad_read() to use the data from raw_joy_data bytes 6 and 7), and you need to modify the function that packs the CC bitstruct. WMExtension::set_button_data currently doesn't accept analog trigger values as an argument and just puts 0 in those fields instead. Just modify the function signature to accept the analog trigger values and then pass them through. The only question is whether or not the GC triggers use the same analog range as the CC ones, or if we need to modify the values from the GC range to the CC range.

 

[Tuutti]

I would definitely buy at least one adapter and if there ever was going to be any competitive scene for SSBWiiU I'm sure every Smasher will. If it functions near flawlessly with no noticeable input lag and has the analog shoulder feature this thing should spread like a wildfire among not only Smashers but all sorts of NGC loving fanboys. CC is probably going to be supported with most of the games supporting Pro Controller and having an option to use a GC controller would be great.

Heck, I even made this account just to show my interest in this one! Go for it!