Build This Adapter to Develop Atari 5200 Joysticks Without an Actual Atari

Older computers and video game consoles, particularly in the 8-bit era, took a drastically different approach to joystick connections than modern systems do. Today’s gamepads almost all have their own built-in microcontroller that monitors the buttons and thumb sticks, and then sends the data digitally to the computer or console. Older systems did things in a much more analog way, often with an individual wire between the controller and console for each button and joystick axis. The Atari 5200 worked in a similar way, and danjovic has designed an Atari 5200 controller port emulator for modern computers.

The Atari 5200 had a fairly unique joystick connection, which had support for a two-axis analog joystick, two action buttons, a full 10 numerical keys, plus keys for asterisk, pound, start, and reset. With the modern approach, all of those (and more) could just be connected digitally via a three or four wire connection. But the Atari 5200, which was released in 1982, had a joystick port with 15 pins. This was not compatible with the Atari 2600’s 9-pin connector, which had become something close to a standard among a handful of other manufacturers. The controllers that came with the Atari 5200 were notoriously bad, and many people make their own. This controller port emulator makes it easy to develop those controllers on modern PC.

The entire purpose of this device is just to detect the joystick position and which buttons are pressed on an Atari 5200-compatible controller. When connected to a modern computer through a serial terminal, it will output the current status of the controller. It’ll tell you the readings from the joystick potentiometers, the action buttons, and which of the keys on the keypad are pressed. A Microchip PIC16F628A microcontroller is used to monitor the controller through the standard port. You probably have an Atari 5200 if you’re planning on making controllers for the system, but this makes it much easier to debug and test your hardware during development.