Posted by Druin on 26, 2000 at 1:01 AM:
It was noted by The Maverick that there are at least 3 games: Front Line, Wild Western, and Tin Star, that have a rotating character that doesn't use the 2 dial inputs, but instead these games (and possibly others?) use an 8 way joystick to control the aiming (why would they do this - you need 3 arms then, one for normal character movement, one for aiming on the other joystick, and one to fire). I have no idea why these games were emulated differently, but luckily for me, the 2 out of 3 of them that I tried at least, were "older" games than the good old Ikari type, so since they aren't really nostalgic for me, and they're so simple looking, I won't really miss them, but for anyone that WOULD like to play them, I came up with a little adapter circuit.
It's untested as yet so it may not be fully correct but the idea is there. I purposely chose not to use an easy solution with a programmed microcontroller. I used normal discreet ICs that anyone can buy and use without having to program chips, especially if they don't have a programmer etc.
Since the games are Rotary games, I designed this circuit around the Rotary Interface so that it can connect to the interface's clockwise/counter clockwise outputs and convert those backwards into 8 way joystick combinations of up, down, left, and right, so each time the rotary joystick is rotated either way, the adapter circuit will "rotate" a fictional 8 way joystick in that same direction, and that gets wired to the keyboard encoder's joystick inputs. Then we're back to only needing 2 hands again to play...one on a rotary joystick that controls character movement and aiming direction, and the other one firing or holding the beer.