Virtual Boy Controller Mods

Hey. I haven’t done any controller modding myself. However,the protocol is same as on the NES. You can find some information here: http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=4805&post_id=21336#forumpost21336

Some more information can be found here: http://www.planetvb.com/content/downloads/documents/stsvb.html#hardwarecontrolregisters

I would be cool if you post some information about your mods if you make progress. Also… welcome to the community.

For some reason..I think a 6 button controller would rock right about now :).

HADOOKEN!!;)

Welcome to the forum, HPL!

As thunderstruck mentioned, it’s a fairly simple serial protocol to handle. Are you familiar with any type of microcontroller? Just about any device with enough I/O to handle both the VB pad (2 out + 1 in) and target system would make short work of this. The Jaguar might be a little tough; IIRC, it’s a switch matrix.

You probably already have this link, but for the benefit of other readers: http://raphnet.net/electronique/electronique_en.php

Keep us posted on your progress!

jrronimo wrote:
I think you can probably use a NES/SNES USB conversion kit from RetroUSB. I bought a couple to try out but haven’t had the time to deal with it lately. They used to sell a VB-specific kit.

He seems to specifically want to connect the VB pad to other game consoles, so this wouldn’t really work. Although, with suitable firmware, that would be compatible with the PS3/4 and Xbox/360/One, I guess. I hope you get back to that project, someday; it would be nice to know if it supports the extra buttons on the VB pad. I wonder why they got rid of the VB one…

HP Lovethrash wrote:
Assume that I know nothing about this controller mod project and that I’m already in way over my head…do I need to do some kind of adjustment to coding or data protocols or whatever? I figured it wasn’t as simple as affixing VB wires to NES controller cables, but I read some of the stuff on the links you posted and it’s daunting to a beginner like me.

Actually, it is that simple; if you want to use the VB pad on an NES or SNES. The three systems share a nearly identical controller interface, and a simple passive adapter works fine. The NES will, of course, not support the L/R triggers or B/A (B and A on the NES pad correspond to R-Down and R-Right, respectively). On the SNES, A, B, X, and Y map to the right d-pad as you’d expect, and the only unsupported buttons are B/A (unless you write your own game).

As for the other systems, if you don’t want to deal with microcontrollers to translate between protocols, the easiest thing to do is just gut the VB pad and wire up the buttons to the guts of the target system’s pad. Since the latter probably won’t fit inside the VB pad, you could send the button wires out via a custom cable and make a box for the controller guts, connecting the two with a DB25 or other suitable connector. Then you could bring it full-circle by putting the VB pad guts in a similar box for use with a VB.

HP Lovethrash wrote:
Fascinating…well maybe I will experiment with that idea- personally I feel like using the right D-pad for A/B in a game like Mega Man on NES may lead to epic thumb fatigue, but maybe not. And the “guts box” idea is clever, I may give that a shot first so I can customize and use A/B as intended. Or, experiment using L/R triggers for A/B??

You may be right about the thumb damage. I’ve got fairly large thumbs, and I’ve never really cared for the VB d-pads’ sharp ends. For a while now, I’ve been wanting to try to swap them out for GBA ones. I think they’re about the right size, but they’re flat like those on all of N’s other systems.

BTW, that’s a good point about the customization options.

Now, how much of a pain would a VB>N64 conversion be? I always found the N64 controller to be cumbersome.

Again, it’s pretty much up to you how much work you want to put into it.

Maybe the left D-pad on the VB could be swapped for the joystick, the right D-pad becomes the C-buttons, select becomes Z, triggers and A/B are the same…I forget if I had mentioned this one before in a previous post :p

I would suggest using L for Z and select for L; more N64 games use Z than L, after all. You could use a 4PDT toggle switch to select between the d-pad being the joystick or the d-pad.

First things first, do you know off-hand what wires I swap/connect when doing VB>NES? Hopefully they’re color-coded somehow.

Thanks \m/

I plan on making a wiki entry about the controller port, but in the mean time, David Tucker (reality_boy) has a pinout diagram on his site, and you can pretty easily find the pinouts for (S)NES pads, online. Just match up the +5V, GND, clock (clk, shift, etc.), latch (load, P/S, etc.), and data (D0, etc.) lines.

Have phun! 😉