kirk33 / allpads-nes

Test for multiple controllers that plug into an NES or Famicom

Controller test

This NES program detects which console model you have and which controllers are connected by reading the controller ports.

Start the program, and it'll briefly display whether you have an NES-001, NES-101, or Family Computer while scanning for controllers. It looks for D0 controllers (Controller, Four Score, Mouse) on both D0 and D1 so that they'll work on the Famicom through a pin adapter to its DA15 expansion port.

Once it completes, it displays names and pictures of connected controllers. From here, press a controller's primary fire button to begin an input test. (This is A on NES controllers, B on the Super NES Controller, the left mouse button, the Zapper's trigger, or 4 on a Power Pad side B.)

Detection and input testing work for these:

• NES Controller (original NES-004 and dogbone NES-039)
• Famicom hardwired controllers (1P and 2P with microphone)
• NES Power Pad (NES-028)
• NES Four Score (NES-034)
• Super NES Controller (SNS-005) through pin adapter
• Zapper (NES-005)
• Arkanoid Controller
• Super NES Mouse (SNS-016) through pin adapter

Some flash cart menus cannot be navigated with anything but an NES or Super NES controller. You can work around this by starting the program, hot-swapping to the desired controllers, and then pressing the Reset button on the Control Deck to rescan the ports.

Press Reset before the scan finishes to display low-level data about which lines are always off, always on, serial, or not connected at all. (See docs/methodology.md for how this works under the hood.) Then, if you have a standard controller in port 1 or are using the Famicom's hardwired controllers, press Select to begin watching a report of up to 32 bits on any serial line.

Limits

The PowerPak by retrousb.com has pull-up resistors on the data bus that may interfere with console type detection. The EverDrive, Infinite NES Lives boards, and donor carts do not have this problem.

The NES dogbone controller and Famicom hardwired controller behave exactly the same as the original NES controller. So it guesses that the controller used is the one that the console shipped with. Nor can it distinguish the original Famicom (HVC-001), with one hardwired controller with Select and Start buttons and one hardwired controller with a microphone, from the AV Famicom (HVC-101) with two controllers plugged in. If it mis-detects an AV Famicom as an original Famicom, press A on controller 2 to start the test, then Start to switch from the mic controller to the standard controller.

Versions of the Power Pad and Arkanoid Controller for the Famicom use a different protocol that is not yet supported, though the NES versions of those work through a pin adapter that passes D3 and D4 to the DA15 port. Nor does it support U-Force, Power Glove, Miracle Piano, or other hen's teeth.

Rescanning requires Reset primarily because hot-swapping can occasionally cause a power sag that freezes the CPU.

Serial watch doesn't work correctly on controllers where the act of reading a report itself has side effects. These include the Arkanoid controller, which resets a 555-family timer, and the Super NES Mouse, which clears accumulated movement. Reading controller 1 to choose a port and bit also causes the other controller to be read.

Contact

Let me know what you get. My nick on the EFnet IRC network is pino_p and I'm often seen in the #nesdev channel. There is also a topic for this test on NESdev BBS, titled Riding the open bus.

Legal

The test program and its manual are distributed under the zlib license:

Copyright 2016 Damian Yerrick

This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions:

1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software.
3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.