One-button Joystick

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Bradford
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Joined: Fri May 27, 2022 5:54 pm

One-button Joystick

Post by Bradford »

I have some old Amiga / C64 Joysticks and a db9-to-usb convertor, so that I can use them on my PC. These joysticks all have two buttons, but they only register as the same button as these systems basically only support one-button joysticks.

The joysticks work fine with Rocks'n'Diamonds. However, I run into trouble when I need to use dynamite and need the second button.

Some questions:

- Can I somehow configure Rock'n'Diamonds to use a one-button schema, so that I can control it like on the amiga (I believe it was by holding the fire button for the dynamite action or something like that?)?

- Is it possible to use the joystick in combination with a key from the keyboard just acting as the second button for the joystick?

- Does anyone know a working two-button joystick that I could buy, that somehow resembles joysticks like the competition pro, the quickshot or (my favorite) the Suzo arcade turbo, and that I could connect to my PC somehow? I know there was a native usb-version of the competition pro some years ago, but you can't buy these anymore.
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Holger
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Re: One-button Joystick

Post by Holger »

HI Bradford, welcome to the forum! :)
The joysticks work fine with Rocks'n'Diamonds. However, I run into trouble when I need to use dynamite and need the second button.
Yes, the old problem that was the reason for the keep-button-pressed solution for placing dynamite used in Emerald Mine and Supaplex (which was the reason for countless sudden death when playing back then ;-) ).
- Can I somehow configure Rock'n'Diamonds to use a one-button schema, so that I can control it like on the amiga (I believe it was by holding the fire button for the dynamite action or something like that?)?
You can in fact use a one-button joystick just fine with all levels from the Emerald Mine Club collection and all levels from the Supaplex collection (add-on level sets downloadable from the "Levels" page)! They use the native Emerald Mine game engine or the native Supaplex game engine, and their levels are designed to exactly this behavior.

However, this is not possible for levels using the native Rocks'n'Diamonds game engine (used by virtually all other levels than the two large level collections mentioned above). Although it would be technically possible to detect long pressing of snap key/button (that would be the single fire button of C64/Amiga style joysticks) and use it for placing dynamite, it would not work well to play levels which are designed for a different behavior. Especially leaving a cascade of dynamite while walking would not be possible, and the different timing could make certain levels impossible (where you would have to place dynamite very quickly).
- Is it possible to use the joystick in combination with a key from the keyboard just acting as the second button for the joystick?
Definitely yes! Just go to "setup -> input devices" and configure both your joystick (player 1, for eample) and your keyboard (player 2). When not playing in team mode (locally or in network mode), but in single-player mode, all inputs from all configured devices are merged together to the final player input. So you can play with the joystick and place dynamite using the "Ctrl" key (or whatever key you prefer).
- Does anyone know a working two-button joystick that I could buy, that somehow resembles joysticks like the competition pro, the quickshot or (my favorite) the Suzo arcade turbo, and that I could connect to my PC somehow? I know there was a native usb-version of the competition pro some years ago, but you can't buy these anymore.
Well, you can! I just used "competition pro usb" in Google, and this is the very first hit:

https://www.speedlink.com/en/COMPETITIO ... 50212-BKRD

They are also available on eBay, for example, or even Amazon:

https://www.amazon.de/SPEEDLINK-SL-6502 ... C76&sr=8-3

I also bought such a Competition Pro USB joystick years ago, and it works nicely with R'n'D! The buttons are mapped to two buttons (or even four? not sure at the moment), so you can perfectly play R'n'D levels, but also Emerald Mine style levels!

I am not sure if the USB joystick from the link above also maps the two large buttons to two different logical buttons, as this is not explicitly stated in the documentation (or I have overseen this), but if this should still be the case (as with my own), they are the perfect retro-style joysticks for R'n'D! :D
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