Wire a NES Controller to a Computer to play NES Emulator Games in Style

Hacked Gadgets Forum member Turd wanted to go all out to play NES emulator games. Instead of just playing the old NES games on a PC using a keyboard or modern joystick why not wire in one of the original NES joysticks and play the games like they were meant to be enjoyed! He wired the joystick into the parallel port and wrote some custom interface software using Free Basic. Have a look at his wiring diagram after the jump.

Go to his article for the code download

 

11 Comments


  1. How’s the response time? Any delays at all?


  2. None that I can detect.
    If you compile the program yourself you can change the line “Sleep 20” to a lower number. As is right now, it checks the controller every ~20 milliseconds (~50 times a second).



  3. THANKS! 😀 MY MOTHER WILL LOVE THIS!!!! Our NES just died not too long ago, so she is kinda bumbed (i am not, however… i got to tear it apart… :D)


  4. I am the same way… When something dies it is time to open it up and see what makes it tick. 🙂


  5. Same here, but sometimes it doesn’t have to die lol


  6. I wonder if this can be done with SNES controllers…Then I would be freaking out.


  7. it has opened anew tech world. oh and you can also do it SNES controllers


  8. I wolud like to add that retrousb.com sells kits that lets u mod the nes controler to use as a usb device i have one and i love it i also use the NES emulator FCEULTRA and it is really good

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