2 Player TG16 Console Mod

[cjameslv]

*Update - Final ( On this particular mod anyway )

Cleaned up the wiring and put it all back together. Re-soldered heat shields in place. Used a foam pad with self adhesive backing on the Turbotap pcb so it wont touch the board or heat shield. I really like how it came out and will be working on the RGB>Componet mod to the CD dock soon. Hope you guys enjoy it.

Foam Pads


Bare Port (Player 1)


Controller plugged in (Player 1)


Top View

[Desh]

It came out very nice.  I have plans to do the same but feature all 5 ports on the front of the console.  Very tidy and well thought out work too.  Nice job!

[esteban]

I like the orange buttons on the control pad. 

This is an interesting mod. I prefer using multi-taps, myself, but I love folks experimenting.

[cjameslv]

I like the orange buttons on the control pad. 

This is an interesting mod. I prefer using multi-taps, myself, but I love folks experimenting.

Thanks, the buttons are from a NES controller, turns out the buttons and rubber pads are same shape/size.

[Desh]

I like the orange buttons on the control pad. 

This is an interesting mod. I prefer using multi-taps, myself, but I love folks experimenting.

Thanks, the buttons are from a NES controller, turns out the buttons and rubber pads are same shape/size.

I was going to mention the NES buttons but forgot.  It does look kind of cool.  I was surprised to find that fact when I opened up my first NEC controller.

[Duo_R]

Nicely done!

[cjameslv]

Nicely done!

Thanks! This system is gonna be subject to a few more mods as time permits  I'll take a break and do a simple mod and light up the logo. I like how that looks.

[Punch]

Punch says: try fitting the other 3 ports in the turbo, that would be the ultimate turbo mod.

[cjameslv]

Punch says: try fitting the other 3 ports in the turbo, that would be the ultimate turbo mod.

Agreed that would be pretty epic but until someone makes a 3d print of a new top housing i don't see that happening due to space constrictions,(mainly from gap between pcb and and housing).

[Bonknuts]

I presume an external tap will no longer work with such a mod, seeing as you'd be daisy chaining two taps together.  Removing the ability to play five player Bomberman, Dungeon Explorer, etc. pretty much ruins the system for me.

Unsure about the daisy chain (has anyone tested to see if 2 of them work? i imagine you would just use the last tap in the chain and still only be able to use 5 players tho..). I don't have a need for 5 player bomberman or 5player anything. Just me and wife play on this and i'm just fine with that. If that need ever arose, i'll just use my unmodded TG16.

The way it seems to work is that a clock comes in and it switches ports every clock edge.  So by daisy chaining them, my current thinking is that you'd only have access to the first port of the downstream multitap, and then only once out of every 5 samples (so every button press would be like an auto-fire).  However, there is something about the multitap detecting the DIN connector shells, and skipping the unconnected controllers, but I kind of doubt that to be true, because there's no way to convey which controller's data is being sent up, generally (it resets, then polls all 5, as I understand it).

In short, it seems highly likely that there will be no way to chain an extra multitap to this.  (Maybe it'd make sense to wire up the other three to a DB25 connector somewhere, and make a breakout cable or something, for those times when Bomberman must be played?)

 That's what my tests showed. It (the TAP) knows what controllers are plugged in, but the system side itself doesn't know. You could build the TAP logic with some off the shelf TTL chips. If I remember correctly, it uses the clock line (for reading the upper and lower 4bits of the controller) to clock the to the next input. And if I remember correctly, either the 'reset bit' or a timeout device resets the TAP to position 1 (relative position 1, because it can detect which ports are controllers are plugged into).

[ishiyakazuo]

That's what my tests showed. It (the TAP) knows what controllers are plugged in, but the system side itself doesn't know. You could build the TAP logic with some off the shelf TTL chips. If I remember correctly, it uses the clock line (for reading the upper and lower 4bits of the controller) to clock the to the next input. And if I remember correctly, either the 'reset bit' or a timeout device resets the TAP to position 1 (relative position 1, because it can detect which ports are controllers are plugged into).

Interesting.  Do you know that there's a timeout, or is that speculation?  I guess that a timeout would be useful for games that use only the original 2 button controller and only sample every X milliseconds and don't have support for more than 1 player.  They wouldn't care if it's a multitap or not then.

[cjameslv]

 That's what my tests showed. It (the TAP) knows what controllers are plugged in, but the system side itself doesn't know. You could build the TAP logic with some off the shelf TTL chips. If I remember correctly, it uses the clock line (for reading the upper and lower 4bits of the controller) to clock the to the next input. And if I remember correctly, either the 'reset bit' or a timeout device resets the TAP to position 1 (relative position 1, because it can detect which ports are controllers are plugged into).

If you can give me a diagram of this idea, i'll throw it on a breadboard and test it and post results. Then we could have 2 port mod that would be able to be more mainstream and not turn off those that need to play 3+ players.

[ishiyakazuo]

If you can give me a diagram of this idea, i'll throw it on a breadboard and test it and post results. Then we could have 2 port mod that would be able to be more mainstream and not turn off those that need to play 3+ players.

I don't think that this really helps that particular use case... you still can't daisy-chain multitaps.  The software still only knows how to read from a single multitap.  My comment about it was really saying that 1-player games can be played through a multitap without needing special code to handle multitaps.  Once you start going to 2+ players, you're still stuck with the single multitap, because certain signals (such as the reset pulse) never get passed further down.

[Keith Courage]

Maybe use a switch to turn the 2nd controller port on or off so that way an external tap can still be used. An 8pole switch of some sort would do the trick. Then again, I wonder if there are just a couple of the signals you would have to terminate in order to switch off the internal tap for the 2nd port.

[Paddyfitz18]

Man that came out nice.  And I agree those NES buttons on the controller look really cool.