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Stupid 2600 Stuff I've Thought of Doing

Posted by BigO, 31 May 2007 · 44 views

Not all (or much) of this is reasonable, obviously. Just dumping thoughts. Some bizarre, some actionable.

Build a foot operated paddle controller (WIP).

Build a solid state, jitter-free paddle controller replacement (For 2nd generation of foot operated paddle controller). Discussed rather thoroughly. (Also relates to another undisclosed controller related project.)

Hack Space Invaders to use the paddle controller and also speed up the game action if possible to go along with the paddle controller. I like the fast pace of Kaboom, Circus and some other paddle games. Can't do that with joysticks very well. (Though Crackpots is decent.)

Hack Combat, Asteroids to use the driving controller.

Write my own game (WIP).

Support joystick, paddle and driving controllers in my homebrew game. Probably should get the game working with one controller first (paddle).

Write my own multi-console (high latency tolerant) game, interconnecting consoles via joystick port. Battleship comes to mind first.

Build a plugin (standard cartridge socket) memory expansion module that can be accessed by cartridges with a special connector and left in place and ignored by "normal" cartridges. Probably possible, but not very practical

Build a docking module to use the 2600 as a display and control device for handheld electronic games. The limitations of the 2600 make it a mighty poor choice for an external display device. Sudoku prompted this thought originally. Later, I thought it would be cool in an extremely geeky way to control an MP3 player this way to make a 2600 "Media Center".

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Modified paddle, driving controller with a (optional) variable pulse "progressive" output from the "fire" button to act as like an acclerator pedal (instead of just on/off) for driving games. Probably such foot pedals exist, but haven't seen the functionality built into a handheld controller. Would also make "autofire" capability possible for whatever games might be able to benefit from that functionality. I assume 3rd party joysticks have already incorporated this functionality.




TJ already did Asteroids DC, and I released a Combat hack called "Ace" that has the planes controlled via DC a few years ago :)
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Cybergoth, on Thu May 31, 2007 12:27 PM, said:

TJ already did Asteroids DC, and I released a Combat hack called "Ace" that has the planes controlled via DC a few years ago ;)

Hey, thanks for that info. Wow, that puts me in pretty good company thinking-wise. Now, if only I could get anywhere near the same category programming-wise. ;) I'll look for those hacks and see if I can learn a thing or two.

I'm sure nobody but me could be dumb enough to want to hack Space Invaders to play faster and use the paddle controller. :)
I don't have any idea yet whether there's even enough processor available to do it without making other major alterations. I'm still mostly ignorant about 2600 programming, but I'm working on it.
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