11/16/91 DISCLAIMER: WIRING OF JOYSTICKS FOR YOUR COMPUTER MAY DAMAGE YOUR COMPUTER IF IMPROPERLY DONE. I OR JAEGER SOFTWARE MAKE NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED AS TO THE CORRECTNESS OF THIS INFORMATION. USE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH SOLDER OR PIN WIRING ON ELECTRICAL CONNECTORS, REFER THIS ADAPTOR CONSTRUCTION TO SOMEONE PROPERLY QUALIFIED. Analog Joysticks for use with Amiga Flight Simulators. Works with: Fighter Duel Corsair vs. Zero by Jaeger Software Genie Airwarrior by Kesmai F-15 Strike Eagle II by Microprose (Haven't tested it with others) If you are one of the fortunate ones to fly a flight simulator that supports Analog joysticks, you may have wondered where to get one. This text file and accompaning Hires Interlaced IFF show the pinouts needed to make any late model IBM Analog joystick work with your Amiga. You can make an adaptor to use the IBM stick without violating its wiring, voiding your warranty, or preventing you from using it on your IBM etc. The list of materials: 1 DB9 female joystick extender cable 1 DB15 female connector with hood WHY THIS WIRING: According to the Amiga hardware manual and every system guide that comes with the Amiga, Pin 5 is for x or horizontal movement and Pin 9 is Y or vertical movement. Airwarrior and F-15 Strike Eagle II both reverse these pins in the software, so we at Jaeger decided to follow suit to allow air warriors with analog sticks to use Fighter Duel. Its not right, but well it works as long as the software can compensate for it. WHY THESE PARTS: I have found this the easiest approach. Look for a joystick extender cable that has all the pins in it. Ones from Radio Shack work great. Most old dead Amiga mouse or joystick cables could be used except they don't have all the pins connected in them, especially the ones we need. If you have an Amiga 2000 or 2500, make sure you get a extender cable that has the usual slim connector end that joysticks have, otherwise it won't fit in the connector hold. The reason I don't suggest just buying a female connector hood for the DB9 is that I have yet to find one small enough to fit. WHAT ABOUT RESOLUTION: I have heard a lot discussion that IBM sticks aren't good enough for the Amiga because the Amiga has higher precision at the port than what IBM sticks can generate. Well the Amiga has a larger range on it's poteniometers than what IBM sticks can generate, but for flight simulators I have found that a slightly reduced sensitivity works just fine. Most simulators are so slow in updating the screen that more sensitivity may work against you, causing over compensation. In Fighter Duel, where everything is based on a realtime 30 frame per second time interval, the IBM analog sticks work great. Fighter Duel takes a reading on the stick and determines the range by the middle position. This means that the better the stick you have, the more range you have. WHAT STICKS WORK THE BEST: Everyone has personal favorites for joysticks. People will fanatically defend them like a religion. I prefer the higher end of sticks, ones with linear potentiometers, not slide brushes. I'm not big on Yoke type stick units, I feel funny flying a fighter with a yoke. I also like sticks with suction cups and trigger firebuttons. Here are a couple of ones I own and how I rate them. 1 Quickshot by Bondwell (about $20.00) has slide brushes but still works well. Has suction cups and handle trigger button. A little loose in free floating mode. 2 FlightStick by CH industries ( about $40.00 ) nice action, has potentiomers, No suction cups, trigger button on handle. Handle is a bit small for someone with big hands, works well. 3 500XJ by Epyx ( about $30.00 ) small tight action. has trigger on base, has an unusual one button center trim button, I prefer seperate trim controls, don't you? I hope you enjoy the quick control that an analog stick will give you. By the way if you don't feel comfortable making an adaptor like this, give Redmond Cable a call with the pinout, they'll make one for you. Matt Shaw Jaeger Software NOTE: The following message was taken off of Genie, I've tried it and it works! I've also included a revised picture with this change included. I HIGHLY suggest you make this mod! I also tried switch which works fine (some games choke on the higher values given with the capasitors installed) you can even switch it on while its plugged in! GREAT! Thanks for the suggestion Jim Belcher! C&P -----------------------------CLIPPED TEXT---------------------------------- Category 6, Topic 22 Message 144 Fri Jan 03, 1992 J.BELCHER3 [Jim] at 21:33 EST I had a slight problem with my analog stick with Fighter Duel in that just the slightest pressure on the stick while in level flight would start my plane rolling. So I tested my stick (a Gravis Analog) with the JOYCALC program and found that the X and Y ranges for my stick were only 0-36. The Amiga is capable of resolving resistance readings of 0-255, so it was obvious that my stick was only using a very small part of the Amiga's resolving range. Then I added a .1 uf capacitor between each pot wiper and ground as suggested in the AirWarrior Read.me file, and now JOYCALC shows that my sticks Y resolution of my stick is now more than doubled. I no longer have the problem of a super-sensitive stick sending my plane into a snap-roll. Also, the stick seems somewhat smoother with less overshoot in lining up a bogey in the sights. All in all, a noticeable improvement. I mention all this because some of you guys might have the same problem, and with about $ 1.49 in parts you can pretty much solve the problem.:) Jim ------------ -----------------------------CLIPPED TEXT----------------------------------