Nostalgia is a powerful thing that drives makers to bridge the gap between the past and the present. Using vintage joysticks from the Commodore or Atari era on modern hardware is difficult, given the difference in connectors and technology.
These older controllers utilized 9 way D connectors, while modern emulators on PC/Pi devices utilize USB. What is needed is an adapter has the correct 9 way D inputs, with a separate USB output. Luckily, there’s an adapter on Tindie that allows any USB host to recognize vintage joysticks as USB controllers.
This adapter also supports arcade-style 4-way or 8-way joysticks and up to three arcade buttons. Modern game controllers are beautiful and easy to use, but this adapter lets you play the games the way you would have when they originally released.
The adapters come packaged as plug-and-play solutions so you won’t need to implement any drivers or perform any configurations. There is a single option or a dual option that registers two separate controllers for multiplayer.
The adapters allow vintage controllers to be used on a computer or a Raspberry Pi board, but they do not work in reverse so they won’t make your modern controllers work on vintage computer systems.
