PC Engine 3 Button Pad

[KnightWarrior]

I never heard of it, what games in Japan uses it..anyone have a pic of it too

[GohanX]

It was designed for Forgotton Worlds, but it can be used for pretty much any game. It doesn't really add a button, but the extra button is mapped to either select or run, which can be handy for any games that used one of them as an action button. I always wanted one, but I never got my hands on it.

[Cornholio857]

Like this one?

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

There is a 6 button pad also.

[KnightWarrior]

Thanks for the pics & info guys....

[hashiriya1]

I have one for my SuperGrafx. I don't have any games that require it, so I use it as the START button.

[tomaitheous]

Yeah, the 3 button one maps either start or select.

The 6 button controller is actually two gamepad devices/logics in one. When you read the input, you randomly get one or the other device. You can tell the difference only by the fact than the 'directional' read part of the second set, is always set to 1111% (all directions pressed at once). This is how you identify which set of buttons you are reading. This is also why some game control code that doesn't trap for this impossible directional combination (all directions pressed at once, which isn't possible on a real pad), glitch out. Anyway, figured the curious minded might be interested in that. Which leads to another interesting fact about the turbo pads; they're made with off the shelf TTL parts. You can makes your own DIY 6 button controllers if you wanted.

[Zz Badnusty]

Can anyone confirm that the US version of Forgotten Worlds functions with the 3-button pad.

I have an official 3-button pad and it didn't work when I played Forgotten Worlds. ...though I don't clearly remember what the problem was.
Maybe it was that I expected it to do more than remap the Start or Select button?

[GohanX]

It should work... Forgotten Realms maps left turn to the start button, and the NEC Ave 3 will map the button to start.

Off topic, but the 6 button post above reminds me, I need to make a PCE cable for my arcade stick. Sapphire with sanwa controls :drool:

[kool kitty89]

Yeah, the 3 button one maps either start or select.

The 6 button controller is actually two gamepad devices/logics in one. When you read the input, you randomly get one or the other device. You can tell the difference only by the fact than the 'directional' read part of the second set, is always set to 1111% (all directions pressed at once). This is how you identify which set of buttons you are reading. This is also why some game control code that doesn't trap for this impossible directional combination (all directions pressed at once, which isn't possible on a real pad), glitch out. Anyway, figured the curious minded might be interested in that. Which leads to another interesting fact about the turbo pads; they're made with off the shelf TTL parts. You can makes your own DIY 6 button controllers if you wanted.

So it's a multiplexing scheme somewhat like the MD except it uses a specific input value to select the 2nd button bank rather than a dedicated control/select line. (which also means you can't multiplex any of the directional input switch lines -had they only used up+down or L+R, it would have allowed 2 more lines to multiples into the 2nd bank... up+down might have been good as it would also reduce the number of buggy games -probably more games that ignore up/dn than L/R)

[bohokii]

Like this one?

amazing it looks just like my genesis controller

[tomaitheous]

So it's a multiplexing scheme somewhat like the MD except it uses a specific input value to select the 2nd button bank rather than a dedicated control/select line. (which also means you can't multiplex any of the directional input switch lines -had they only used up+down or L+R, it would have allowed 2 more lines to multiples into the 2nd bank... up+down might have been good as it would also reduce the number of buggy games -probably more games that ignore up/dn than L/R)

That's right. The original 8bit data is already multiplexed into two 4bit reads. So you have a total of four 4bit reads on the six button controller.