The ArrowPad Is a Hefty Aluminum Gamepad for Classic MSX Machines — Mimicking the Keyboard
Designed to offer a keyboard-like gaming experience for vintage system, these pads come in at over a pound a piece.
Self-described "PCB assembly consultant" Daniel Padilla has put together a rather slick game pad for the MSX family of home computers, with one key difference to third-party alternatives: it's based on keyboard keys.
First launched in 1983 and running for a decade, the MSX family of computers were a collaboration between Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on a standardized specification for the Eastern market. Built by companies including Sony, Samsung, Casio, Toshiba, and Yamaha, the devices proved popular with around nine million units shipping over the standard's lifespan — and many, as was common for home computers, being used for games.
"Let's face it," Padilla notes, "MSX and most 8-bit computers are almost 40 years old by now, their keyboards have endured long gaming session and are fragile, at best. Other keyboards were poorly designed or have simply died with the pass of time. Due to the fact that most MSX fans grew up using the cursor keys as the sole input device for gaming, having a broken keyboard is almost a death sentence for these machines."
Padilla's solution, then, is a gamepad — but one based on keyboard technology. Dubbed the ArrowPad, the device uses a layout reversed to most common gamepads of the era: A four-way direction pad is located on the right, with two fire buttons to the left. More unusual is that the pad and buttons are keyboard keys, designed to mimic the look and feel of an original MSX keyboard but with only the keys required to play a game.
To make something robust enough to last at least another 40 years, Padilla's ArrowPad eschews plastic for a machined aluminum frame. "[It's] designed to be machined from only one position for cost savings," he notes — though if you're building a gamepad out of aluminum bars cost probably isn't at the forefront of your mind. "It also measures the same as standard aluminum stock bars to keep processing time and lost material to a minimum."
The milled casings are powder-coated, then fitted with their electronics and a front panel, which includes a laminated vinyl decal labeling the keys. All told, the components — including lengthy cable and a foam pad for the bottom of the casing, for both comfort and to avoid scratching your table — come in at around 1.11lbs.
More details on the controller can be found on Padilla's Hackaday.io project page.