Month: April 2023

Perhaps this will help someone out there?

I purchased a 2-pack of rip off NES 8bit controllers on Amazon with an “extension” cord so that I had a ready made connector. Cut the extension cord off and wired it to an Arduino Mega (because that’s what was on the bench). I am using this for a game I am working on for the Makerspace… but through maybe you could use a snippet that worked. The first google code I tried to copy and paste didn’t work so hot.. so here is what I came up… I did find some inspiration here and there but this is a good launching point for your next project.

/*

NES Controller

*/

const int latch = 50;
const int clock = 48;
const int data  = 49;

#define latchlow digitalWrite(latch, LOW)
#define latchhigh digitalWrite(latch, HIGH)
#define clocklow digitalWrite(clock, LOW)
#define clockhigh digitalWrite(clock, HIGH)
#define dataread digitalRead(data)
#define wait delayMicroseconds(15)

unsigned long previousMillis = 0;
const int wait_interval = 20; 

const int A_BUTTON         = 0;
const int B_BUTTON         = 1;
const int SELECT_BUTTON    = 2;
const int START_BUTTON     = 3;
const int UP_BUTTON        = 4;
const int DOWN_BUTTON      = 5;
const int LEFT_BUTTON      = 6;
const int RIGHT_BUTTON     = 7;

byte output;

void setup() {
	Serial.begin(115200);
	pinMode(latch, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(clock, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(data, INPUT);
  Serial.println("NES TEST");

}

boolean isBitSet (byte myVar, byte bitNumber) {
  bool bitvalue;
  bitvalue = myVar & (1 << bitNumber);
  return bitvalue;
}  


void readNES() {
  latchlow;
  clocklow;
  latchhigh;
  wait;
  latchlow;
 
  for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) {
     output += dataread * (1 << i);
     clockhigh;
     wait;
     clocklow;
     wait;
  }
}

void hexprint(byte b) {

  Serial.print("0x");
  if (b < 10) Serial.print("0");
  Serial.println(b, HEX);

}

void loop() {
  output = 0;
  readNES();
  if (!isBitSet(output, 0)) Serial.println("A Button");
  if (!isBitSet(output, 1)) Serial.println("B Button");
  if (!isBitSet(output, 2)) Serial.println("SELECT Button");
  if (!isBitSet(output, 3)) Serial.println("START Button");
  if (!isBitSet(output, 4)) Serial.println("UP Button");
  if (!isBitSet(output, 5)) Serial.println("DOWN Button");
  if (!isBitSet(output, 6)) Serial.println("LEFT Button");
  if (!isBitSet(output, 7)) Serial.println("RIGHT Button");
  //Serial.print("Read: "); hexprint(output);
}