Gaming Hacks

Adapt Old Video Game Controllers to the PC

Want to play your favorite PC game with your favorite console joypad? No problem.

If you enjoy playing arcade-style games on your PC, you may have found that they benefit immensely from a joypad. (Trust me, they do.) However, although you can buy PC joypads that will do the trick, you probably already have a perfectly good Xbox or PlayStation controller. Thanks to the wonders of hacking, you can adapt that console controller to work on your home computer. This is great for console ports, MAME, other emulated titles, and your wallet.

The Easy Way: Buying Adapters

Before hacking any hardware, consider that you can buy several third-party USB adapters, particularly for PlayStation joypads, but also for the Xbox and more exotic consoles. However, you may not be able to use your choice of homebrew drivers for this equipment. Sometimes, the hardware adapter is a little bit proprietary, so you’ll have to use the manufacturer’s drivers or write your own. On the plus side, the hardware is already built.

Be aware that several available PlayStation adapters have a few compatibility problems. They do complicated things, and most adapters have only Windows drivers. As well, some commercial USB adapters will not work properly with Dance Dance Revolution pads, if you want to play DDR or DDR clones such as Stepmania on your PC. The parallel port adapter we’ll build does work in concert with the DirectPad drivers—another reason to hack it yourself. Junta’s ...