CD32 reset-by-joypad device?

[Amiga1992]

Would it be possible to create a device, connected internally to the CD32's controller port, that would intercept the signals sent through it and upon a specific combination (let's say both shoulder buttons and play/pause), it would trigger a reset? This would also have to connect to the reset button or another point in the motherboard where a reset can be executed.

I feel like a tiny Arduino could be made to do this and it would be super cool for being able to reset the console from the joystick and choose another game when you are playing compilation CDs. Then again I don't have the tech know-how to make it myself ;(

[jotd]

Cd32load already does that for games running under it

[Amiga1992]

When did I miss this fantastic feature? How does it get triggered?

Still would be good to have an all purpose solution that could also work on other Amigas and software, as long as you have a CD32 controller. People with Tinylauncher or similar could control it all from their joypad without need to reach towards the keyboard.

[Amigajay]

Yes CD32load has it, I think it's press all 7 buttons at the same time to reset.
Which is great for those games, also of course works with the demos on the demo disc I'm working on, but whdload or file/exe demos of course need getting up!

[Amiga1992]

Would be hard to press all 7, maybe it is color buttons plus shoulder ones? I'll try tonight when I get back home 😊

[xArtx]

For hardware, a second shift register inside the machine to read the value of the one in the joystick,
then a number of and gates to set the button combination to reset.
Since you'd get four and gates in a chip, it could be done with two stock Logic chips.

[Amiga1992]

The CD32 pad doesn't work like a standard DB9 Atari-type joystick, so not sure if the solution would be that simple, would it?
I actually don't even know what kind of into the Amiga receives from that sort of pad.

[xArtx]

It receives both the information from the standard part (directions & fire) in parallel,
and receives a bit stream for the extra buttons serially.

[Amiga1992]

I guess I have to go and read up some on how to make this, it sounds quite simple.
Which pin on the port sends the data stream?

[jotd]

I confirm CD32Load resets the console when pressing all 4 color buttons + play button. No need to press shoulder buttons. Can't find that in the doc. Got to document that (I can't believe that I didn't do it earlier, sorry)

Manual solution: if you have a selfie stick you can try to use it to remotely press the reset button

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by jotd

Manual solution: if you have a selfie stick you can try to use it to remotely press the reset button

That would be something
I wish we could just use CD32Load replacing WHDLoad for everything! Hoping you can get back into it sometime soon

[jotd]

I don't think you can replace whdload by cd32load anytime soon on a CD32 because some whdload features are not or not accurately emulated (that could be fixed, but that's not trivial)
Besides, there are some issues with custom CD I/O routines, even if it improved, whereas using the OS to load from CD works much better.

Not sure when I'll resume the work on the project. It's advanced enough already, and now the remaining missing features/bugs are very hard to implement/fix.

[Amiga1992]

I wish you had some help, really. You've done so much for us CD32 users!

[jotd]

Unlike some of my fellow colleagues (guess who this may be) I always provide the source of my projects. So CD32load is almost open source (except some CDIO parts which I just use as binary).

Toni helped a great deal BTW: fixing the CDIO bug present in RN loader AND in Psygore loader (I guess one copied the other, just find out which is which ), and providing the routine to send a key event without keyboard He also provided a routine to read CD audio. That one I didn't use (yet).

But taking over someone else's work is never easy, even with the source.

[MrDBUG]

Hello !
Ive been testing my CD32 a little lately and had some odd behaviour on the Factor5 collection by AmigaJay. I have been using the twobutton Amiga joystick from AmigaKit and oddly I've seen resets when pushing button two in some off the games ! This is in the games that does not use the button for anything ingame. And also I had some Wierd colour pulsing from grayscale to colour on Turrican 2 opening screen and ingame :-(
My CD32 is supposed to be recapped and does not show much errors in other games !

[jotd]

Your console is probably ok. Test with a real CD32 joypad instead of a 2 button joy. I don't know about this collection does it use cd32load?

[MrDBUG]

Originally Posted by jotd

Your console is probably ok. Test with a real CD32 joypad instead of a 2 button joy. I don't know about this collection does it use cd32load?

Hey !

JTOD - CD32Load is thanked in the Readme ! :-)
I tried a compilation from RGCD and there Turrican 2 was sane !
A friend suggested it could be some PAL/Ntsc issue ?!

I dont know about the button though. No crashes with CD32 gamepad. :-O

[jotd]

JTOD lol I know... Try to figure out if the games that reboot use CD32load or not.

Maybe an old version of CD32load is used and joystick isn't properly detected. Or joystick successfully masquerades as joypad just for detection, then fails when second button is pressed.