Posted by Jack Tripper on 21, 2001 at 1:22 PM:
In Reply to: Program your own Atmel chip (and all parts needed for the 8-4 joystick convertor) posted by Derrick Renaud on 20, 2001 at 12:39 AM:
It may be possible to do this with the normally closed contacts on the joystick microswitches and a gang switch. For example, you could wire the NC contact from the "Up" microswitch in series with the NO "Left" microswitch. When you push diagonal, the NC contact from the "Up" microswitch would open and it would break the circuit for the "Left" microswitch. So, pushing diagonally to the upper left would be the same as pushing "Up". You could have a gang switch across all of the normally open contacts so that when you close the switch, you would revert to an 8-way joystick (shorting out the NC contacts).
This would make it so that you throw a switch to go between 4-way and 8-way. I haven't considered all of the possibilities yet, so there may be a reason why this would not work.