Finally!

Today has marked the first day that it's been cold enough for the heat to turn up in the apartment.

See, the thermostat's in the main hallway of the building, which is apparently better insulated than say... my apartment. And the bulk of my apartment is always far warmer than say... my bedroom.

End result? I'm freezing when I wake up, unless I have two comforters up, *or* the heat turns up. This was my lucky morning.

As a minor aside, I suppose the reason that the other rooms are warmer is because I have warmer *stuff* in them. There's a fridge in the kitchen, a TV in the living room, a PC in the lab, and damned near nothing in my room. Just an alarm clock and lamp. Oh, there's plenty of non-electrical stuff in my bedroom, but nothing capable of generating actual *heat* for me.

There's probably also a significant lack of insulation which I shall be forced to bitch about if I wake up cold and it's *snowing* outside.

On analog clocks and giant robots...

Yes, I still want Twin Sticks. I want them even though I have no use for them (yet.)

Why? Because I *will* ultimately set up head to head gaming on my twin Dreamcasts. Even if I need the import version of VO:OT. Of course, at that point, I'm also looking at getting other serial link games.

More importantly, however, is the hardware cost. $100 for a single Twinstick set. I'm actually better off buying a pair of arcade VO:OT controllers and modifying *those* to work on a Dreamcast! I'd have to do actual work, but I'd get both controllers!

This too, is unrealistic. So, what is a techie to do?

Plan A: Take two PC joysticks, hook them up to a custom controller board, and make *that* talk to the DC.

Why this sucks:
The Dreamcast supports two analog sticks, two d-pads, 6 buttons, a start button, and two analog triggers per controller. However, the Twinsticks are merely two d-pads connected to sticks, with a total of four action buttons and a start button. That's it.

Simple, no? No. See, a PC joystick is an analog device, too. It reports position relative to center based on a variable clock signal. That's right. It doesn't send an axis value from 0 to 255 or 0 to 1023 (like a Dreamcast stick would,) it just sends a faster signal for up, and a slower one for down! Cool, but utterly useless.

Therefore, I've got only one option: Digital joysticks.

"But wait, Chris, how are you going to interface USB hardware?"

::Slap::

"Ow...."

Digital as in up is *just* up, down is *just* down, and so on.

And guess where I can find just wondrous technology? That's right, kids! The NES!

So now I just need to find a few NES QuickShot joysticks. They've got thumb triggers, index triggers, and report a bare minimum of data back to whatever they're connected to.

So, if I were to strip out the controller board, direct-wire the stick and buttons to a Maple bus I/O chip, I'd have half a VOOT controller. Take two, add a momentary contact switch, and I've got Twin Sticks, a Start Button, and I'm only missing a VMU. Theoretically, I could just add that with a little more hacking. Seeing as I need a Maple bus chip, which is only available in DC controllers, I might as well rip out a VMU port while I'm at it.

Estimated cost:
2 Dreamcast controllers: $30 total
4 NES Quickshots: ~$10 total

Blood, sweat, solder, cursing, tears, dead chicked to wave over contraption: Free!

Result? Two sets of Twinsticks for under $50. Perfect for getting my ass kicked in VO:OT.

Of course, that doesn't include other costs, like building enclosures, etc. But we'll worry about that after I get off my ass and buy the parts.