Amiga 1200 2B and using a CD32 controller..?

[spannernick]

I have CD32 simulator on it and can't use my Amiga CD32 controller on it,I can only use one button on it,the red one,so the other buttons don't work,is the a mod I can do it to get it working..?

On my other A1200 motherboard 1D3 it works fine..?



This is example of my mobo,this is not mine.

[Daedalus]

All Amiga motherboards should be able to read the CD32 pad. If only the fire button is working, either some software issue is preventing the configuration of the ports when the emulator launches, or something is damaged on the board. Have you tried it in both ports?

Pin 5 is used to switch CD32 pad modes, if there's damage to the board (i.e. software issues have been ruled out), I'd start checking there. It's rarely used otherwise (e.g. middle mouse button and analogue controllers) so it could be damaged without showing any other symptoms until now.

[Steve T]

just out of interest, what software do you use to simulate a CD32? btw is this the board which had the short on alice or the short between modulator & IDE... I know Alice does a few different things, does it have anything to do with decoding the signals from the pad?

[Daedalus]

No, the port is handled by Paula and one of the CIAs. That doesn't mean Paula hasn't been damaged as well though...

[spannernick]

Originally Posted by Steve T

just out of interest, what software do you use to simulate a CD32? btw is this the board which had the short on alice or the short between modulator & IDE... I know Alice does a few different things, does it have anything to do with decoding the signals from the pad?

No this is the one with the capacitor blow,but tested it and it loads the games fine but have to reset it now to see the cf.No matter just use the boot menu..

Amiga CD32 sim is a floppy that boot a iso file from you CF or HD and mounts it as a CD,search for cd32sim.if I remember.. This A1200 was in a A1200 case with a PC floppy drive,it was the last A1200s,it had a A1200 sticker on it but no C= sign.

[Retro1234]

Youve probably got fakepad running - try CD32 pad test program I think theres one on Aminet or CD32 Dev - How do you know only one button works some games only use one button - I cant see how it would only work with one button? Theres only Two button mode and CD32 button mode.

Ive said it beffore but as simple as it is the CD32 pad needs to be realy plugged in to the port otherwise it just does two button mode.

Also does your other Amiga have kick 3.1? - make sure you have the lowlevel.library. Does Kick3.1 have it built on? I cant remember.

[Daedalus]

A little while ago I wrote a small controller testing utility that can read a CD32 pad without 3.1 ROMs and lowlevel.library. You can get it here.

It should autodetect the CD32 pad in either port and let you test all buttons, as well as switching it to compatibility two-button mode. If it's working in one port but not another it points to a hardware issue of some sort, unless of course you've got some funky patches running as Retro suggested.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Ive said it beffore but as simple as it is the CD32 pad needs to be realy plugged in to the port otherwise it just does two button mode.

This is very important. Sometimes my CD32 pad moves slightly off the socket on my CD32 and most buttons stop working. You have to make sure the connection is firm.

Also do what Daedalus said and test his software.

[Steve T]

Originally Posted by spannernick

No this is the one with the capacitor blow,but tested it and it loads the games fine but have to reset it now to see the cf.No matter just use the boot menu..

I'm amazed it works at all

Originally Posted by spannernick

Amiga CD32 sim is a floppy that boot a iso file from you CF or HD and mounts it as a CD,search for cd32sim.if I remember.. This A1200 was in a A1200 case with a PC floppy drive,it was the last A1200s,it had a A1200 sticker on it but no C= sign.

thats the escom machine right? or amiga tech? anyway thanks i'll check that out.

[Psygore]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

A little while ago I wrote a small controller testing utility that can read a CD32 pad without 3.1 ROMs and lowlevel.library. You can get it here.

or here, needs at least rom 1.1 and 68000.

[spannernick]

Originally Posted by Steve T

I'm amazed it works at all
thats the escom machine right? or amiga tech? anyway thanks i'll check that out.

Yep its escom machine,its the one with the PC floppy in it and the mouse port comes off,weird how the CD32 controller don't work properly,you would think it would,well it works but only the dpad and red button.

All I did was change the motherboard to this one,the other motherboard(1D3),the CD32 controller works fine using the same hard drive CF.

Should I change ports so I am using the mouse port it might work in port 0..?

My roms are 3.1.they are the same ROMS,took them out of the other motherboard,I only have one set of ROMS for both boards.Don't know what I did with the original ROMS.

[Steve T]

Originally Posted by spannernick

Yep its escom machine,its the one with the PC floppy in it and the mouse port comes off,weird how the CD32 controller don't work properly,you would think it would,well it works but only the dpad and red button.

eh, don't talk to me about control pads right now

It does sound like it would be the motherboard somehow, i'd be interested to try a different CD32 pad in it, see if you get the same issue. Otherwise like my problem you perhaps need to start using some better tools for observing what is going on with signalling.

[spannernick]

Just found this post from WHDLoad Bug Tracker and it say..

"Excuse me, the Pad is a CD32 Pad original, compatibile and Sega Pad.

But the Problem isn't the Blizzard, but all the A1200 REV 2B have compatibility problem with CD32 PAD.

I tested JoyPortTest with two Rev 1D.4, one 2B and 1A.

When the option "lowlevel.library" is in use with JoyPortTest the REV 2B don't see all button of the CD32 Pad, while there is no problem with the other motherboard Revisions.
The best A1200 is the Rev 1D.4

Excuse me again.
If you may fix the pad with the Rev 2B, thanks a lot.

This problem is present with all the other 2 button/CD32 pad games
on REV 2B.
The problem is the motherboard revision."

http://mantis.whdload.de/view.php?id...34835b0ac64f02

So it look like CD32 control pads have a problem with Rev 2B motherboards..?

"In Lowlevel.libray mode the PAD is seen as a one button joystick
Without lowlevel.library all the CD32 PAD buttons work.

Another my friend confirmed this work-mode of CD32 pad on Rev 2B Motherboard.
It's a bug made by originally manufactured Commodore's motherboards.

SetJoyPort from Aminet help to solve compatible problems with a lot of games that run from workbench, but in WHDLoad-Mode this is not possible."

[Steve T]

I have two 2b's (both C=)one accelerated WHDload machine and one which just loads games from gotek, I think both are 3.0, and both work fine with CD32 pad electronics... though it may have issues with some 2b's maybe some dont work well, even within revisions there might be differences in components... perhaps you have a board pre-funked from the factory?

[Daedalus]

That does sound strange indeed. I wonder were the wrong value capacitors used on some boards or something. This could cause the CD32 signals to be absorbed. I found this as I had modded my motherboard with larger capacitors on the pot lines in order to improve analogue joystick sensitivity. It meant that the CD32 pads needed a slower clock signal to work properly, which might explain why the port test worked but lowlevel.library didn't. Even within the same revision motherboard there can be slight differences - it wouldn't surprise me if the wrong value capacitor was used for a particular batch. It wouldn't show up in any testing they might do unless specifically for CD32 pads.

[Retro1234]

Two button mode is the same as Two buttons on the Mouse - Does your mouse only have one button?

Actually I have had this problem but it always registers with that Boot up utilitie If Blue pressed do blah etc for the Red and Blue even if the other buttons arnt registering

one of these is called Joypad uses the lowlevel.library and its here it needs to be in the startup-sequence or a batch file preferably a loop.
http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/CD32Tools2

[spannernick]

I use extend cable to plug my mouse and pad in,the same ones that where in my 1D3 mobo,its still the same no buttons work on Pinball Illusion CD32 version,anyway I found out that my 1D3 board works ok so I have swamped the boards back,it back in the wardrobe.. I think I know why I never used this board in the first place now.. Might get some roms for it,if I can get them cheap,well can you get them cheaper the £16..??

[Keir]

One thing I found with my own direct gamepad access code is that a1200 and original cd32 controller was a bad combination. My problem was leaving gameport pin 9 configured as output, pulled high. I think capacitive load on that line was high enough that it wouldn't pull low fast enough for the usual (taken from lowlevel.library) delay loop before reading pin 9 state. My fix, so far, was just to set pin 9 as a floating input. If I still find cases where pin 9 changes state too slowly then I will have to increase the delay loop a bit.

My guess is that lowlevel.library also leaves pin 9 as a pulled-high output and suffers the same marginal performance/correctness as I had on some a1200/controller combinations.

[Sandro]

I confirm that A1200 motherboards rev 2b (commodore or escom) have several problems with cd32 pads and certain joysticks with 2 button support

I recommend skip this motherboard if you plan to play cd32 games using a cd32 pad
A1200 Rev 1D4 or older motherboards don't have this problem

[Daedalus]

I did have problems with a CD32 pad and one of my 1D4 motherboards. With some help from people on here I eventually traced the issue to a mod I did on the board over a decade before and totally forgot about in the meantime. The mod was to increase the capacitor values on pins 5 and 9 in order to increase analogue joystick sensitivity, and had the effect of slowing down the rise/fall times on those pins. Perhaps some A1200 boards use a higher value capacitor than they should? It's the sort of thing that might not have been noticed during testing at the factory...