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Re: [LUG] My LCD project

 

Rob Beard wrote:

> One way I guess if you have enough pins left on the parallel port would
> be to hack together an old Atari 2600 joystick to parallel port
> adaptor.  Then rather than having a joystick wired in, you could have
> something with buttons wired up to +5V and then back to the individual
> pin on the parallel port.  If the pins get +5V to them they would
> register this as either joystick movements or the pressing of a
> firebutton.  From memory, the Atari 2600 joystick (which is also used on
> the C64, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Amiga) is one of the easiest to wire up
> since it generally only has the 4 directions (up, down, left and right)
> and one fire button giving you 5 possible buttons.  I'm sure there must
> be a driver which could be used with this, not sure if there is anything
> in the Kernel, I can't say I've looked at getting a joystick working on
> a Linux box.


I've used all the parallel port pins of use to drive this LCD, it
requires as well as the data lines, an enable signal, 2 chip selects and
a register select, i think that ties up all the usefull ones!


As for hacking in a button thats no problem (if i had free pins) no need
to hack a joystick, just a simple push button from the pin of intrest to
ground and a 3k3 resistor as a pull up to +5v will do. (I'm an
electronic engineer so this stuff is covered :-) )

> Other alternative assuming the parallel port hasn't got enough free pins
> would be to try using the standard PC joystick port (found on most
> cheapo sound cards and most standard ATX motherboards).  Not sure though
> if the PC joystick port is analogue or digital though.

Possible even if its analogue, use the same resistor trick and just
*measure* the analog levels using what ever driver, an execlent idea!

Regards

Robin

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