Joystick for computer from the keyboard

We already did a similar home-made on our own, only in it did we coordinate the joystick from the Dandy set-top box with the hardware of the computer by means of a special program. Here we will simply simply remake the usual computer keyboard into a joystick.

What do we need. Any keyboard (preferably with a USB bus for convenience), but naturally working. Any joystick from any console, any manufacturer, even a non-working one is possible. The main thing is that inside it one more board fits on top.

I took here such a "plump" joystick.

Briefly tell our puzzle, I think you will understand everything.

I don’t know whether or not you know that the keyboard and joystick work in a similar way. Namely, in each of these devices the principle of command encryption is applied. This is done so that as few wires as possible can be removed from the device. For example, if you bring at least one wire to each button from the keyboard, you will already get a lot. And so it was decided to encrypt them and translate them into pulses.

In the keyboard, in contrast to the joystick, the principle of cross-connecting the buttons is applied, that is, about a dozen buttons go to the keyboard board from the buttons, and from the board 4 or 5, depending on the device’s interface.

Let's get down to action. We pull out the board from the joystick and use a screwdriver to chop all the contacts from the native chip.

Next, solder to each contact a pair of wiring. And we solder these pairs to the board from the computer keyboard.

Accordingly, you need to know in advance which contacts on the board are responsible for which buttons.

The work is complicated, for mindfulness.

Here is the result.

I want to say that it didn’t work out right away either.

And according to which buttons to connect, decide for yourself, for example, for me, "W" is equal to the joystick buttons up. "S" - down, "A" - to the left and so on.

In our past COMPUTER JOYSTICK, you can download the archive with games for the joystick, if you do not have your own. There are more than 300 games for dandy, shogi, nintendo. The best games for the generation of the 90s.

Good luck!