SNES Pads: Console controllers on your PC

How to connect?

The basic idea is pretty simple.

We want to make an adapter that will connect a controller for the NES or SNES to the parrallel port on a PC. The Linux Joystick Driver page has oodles of information on just such an adapter. If you grab the driver tarball, you'll find a handy file named 'joystick-parport.txt'
It has pretty much all the info we need to build our adapter.

Stuff we'll need:

  • Something to plug into the PC. It needs to be a DB25 Male connector, so a printer cable or 25 pin serial cable will do.
  • Something the game pad can plug into. Since the SNES and NES gamepads aren't standard the best bet is to grab an extension cable. You can find these on ebay and Jandaman.com. Having said that, I've used the connectors from an old SNES and tried a connector from scratch as well as the extension cable method.
  • Some switching diodes (1N4148 or 1N914). We need to grab some power from the parallel port; these will make sure we don't fry anything. And these guys only go one way.
  • Soldering supplies, a continuity tester and the gamepad (duh...)



The DB25 connector and the pins we'll be using... Note: we're looking at the pin side of the cable.




The four player schematic. Note the direction of the diodes. The diode itself will have a line on it to show orientation.




While not really needed; here's a PCB trace at 300dpi. Also a pdf version.





Next >>