Vojtěch Salajka's Raspberry Pi Pico USB Adapter Brings Broader Mouse Support to the Sony PlayStation

Maker Vojtěch Salajka has turned a Raspberry Pi Pico into an unusual accessory for Sony's original PlayStation console family: a USB mouse adapter.

Launched in Japan in 1994 and North America in 1995, following a failed partnership with Nintendo, the PlayStation was Sony's smash-hit entry into the games market. Using CD-ROM discs instead of cartridges, the console concentrated on 3D games and an iconic controller, which wouldn't gain its twin analog sticks — still present on the PlayStation 5's controller today — until 1997.

What the console is less well-known for is mouse support — but Sony did, indeed, release the official PlayStation Mouse alongside the console itself. Designed primarily for point-and-click adventure games, but also compatible with a range of first-person shooters and light-gun games, the PlayStation Mouse is something of a rarity these days — which is where Salajka's adapter comes in.

Based on a Raspberry Pi Pico, a USB board with step-up power converter, and the cable taken from a PlayStation-compatible wired controller, Salajka's adapter allows a modern USB mouse to control compatible PlayStation software — including the main menu and the CD Audio playback screen.

"This is an early version of the adapter, so issues may appear," Salajka admits of the open source design. "Not every USB mouse is compatible with the adapter at the moment, but most ordinary ones should work. [Also,] when a memory card is present in Slot 1 and [the] mouse adapter [is] in Port 1, the memory card might not work correctly."

Those who want to give the adapter a go can find the source code and a compiled U2F firmware file on Salajka's GitHub repository under the permissive MIT license.