made a joystick for the amiga but it does not work
 

I wired up a Sanwa joystick I had laying around; it is a simple ball style joystick with 4 microswitch and 2 sanwa buttons.


Got the right pinout for the DB9 connector, verified the wires and they match. Used a multimeter in continuity mode to verify that the circuit will close, and it does for each pin I tested (got a clip in the pin connector of the DB9 attached to one probe of the multimeter, the other probe is on the ground connector and I swapped pins testing all directions and buttons and they all work fine).


Although when I plug in the joystick, it does not work. Nothing works, neither the directions nor the buttons. I connected the joystick to either ports so I am sure the ports are not the issue.


I wired as following at the female connector; pin 1 on the top left, pin 9 on the bottom right



Pin Connection
1 UP
2 DOWN
3 LEFT
4 RIGHT
5 Button 3 (not connected)
6 Button 1
7 5V (not connected)
8 GND
9 Button 2


Not sure why it does not work; if I plug the mouse in port 2, it works fine (using a joystick test app running on the amiga). What am I missing here?

Silly me, I had the wiring inverted... I was looking at the pinout of the male port on the Amiga, not of the one from the female port. Inverted the wiring and now everything works fine :)

BTW I am experiencing issues with diagonal movements, which take a lot to be registered and does not get picked up all the time (this is especially problematic with games like SWOS, where diagonal movements happen as transition from the standard 4 way movements).

Do I have a crappy joystick or there is some sort of setting to change to make it better?

There's nothing really that influences the diagonal action other than the mechanics of the joystick itself. Adjusting the switches to modify the distance taken to activate them might help. From the joystick switches all the way to the software, all 4 directions are treated independently, so there's no adjustment anywhere along the way, and interpretation of the horizontal and vertical inputs by the game is what makes the diagonal action a thing.

You can get an 8 way / octagonal restrictor plate that will allow 8 way movement. Its particular useful for fighting games in arcades for pulling off hard moves. Since it is 8 way it should give you a more accurate position on the stick for activating diagonal movement.