Famulator Controller to NES help please! Need DB-9 pinout

[satoshi_matrix]

Hey all, my favorite Famiclone the Famulator went kaput recently but I'd like to reuse its Famiclone controllers on the NES by replacing the DB-9 cord with an NES 7pin cord. The problem is that I have no idea how to go about getting it to actually work.

Does anyone here happen to know where I may possibly find Famicom DB-9 controller pinouts?

Looking around, time and again I find the common dendy one, like the one shown on the right of this image



The problem is that the Famulator does NOT use this pinout. I've hacked apart the DB-9 cord to try and learn its secrets, and this is what I discovered.

Rather than look like this:

    __________
1 \ x o o o x / 5
   \ o x o x /
    6 `"""' 9

it instead looks like this:

    __________
1 \ x o o o x / 5
   \ o x x o /
    6 `"""' 9


the signals are for this pinout the top middle three and the bottom outer two.

Because I hacked apart the controller edge, I know what color wires each pin corresponds to

x ORG YEL RED x
BLK x   x BRN

but even knowing all this still doesn't yield any results. Soldering an NES cord to each of the five wires and then plugging it in to my nes and running the nintendo joypad test via the powerpak yeilds no results, so I know for certain that the pinout for the dandy Famiclones is not correct. I've tried many different sequences and they all come out as bad.


So i need help finding a pinout that will work. If it'll help, I'll gladly post a pic of the controller PCB, though as its a gloptop I'm not sure how much help that would be.

I'm sure I had read something about Famiclone pinouts on the nesdev wiki in the past
all I can find is the tutorial that I wrote myself
http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/NES_Classic_Controller_for_Wii

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Xious]

The DE-9 pinouts are there somewhere, but in this case, I think they will not be helpful.

A PCB photo may be helpful; I take it that the 4021B is not a standard DIP for this controller. I am not familiar with this clone, or with what is special about its controllers, but I will assist if I can. 

[tonev]

Here i think this is the famiclone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTb8hRQOdAY

[Xious]

I'd still need to see high-resolution PCB photos or scans (both sides) to make any educated guess. 

[tonev]

[images removed]

Does this help?

[Xious]

Do you mean the video? No, I would need to see the internals of a controller to identify the parts, and to see if it is even 4021-based at all, at all. 

[tonev]

Hm the images have disappeared 
hm



now do you see them?

[Xious]

Yes, however they are largely meaningless, as I need to see the controller PCB to identify the wiring it uses. About the only things I could try to isolate from the system PCB are VCC and GND, leaving the key trio of signals undetermined.  .

[tonev]

Then satoshi_matrix can take pictures of his controlers... thought the port is a normal  famiclone port so I assume the wires are the same

[NintendoKing]

I hate how all modern clones die fast, my penguin Famiclone died a couple days ago for no apparent reason also.

[Xious]

Yet another reason that I neither sell them, nor push for their use. Jeepers, the sound in that video was awful...

As Satoshi indicated, the wiring is not identical to the standard used by most DE-9 ports on clones, and without looking at the controller PCB, there is no way to determine the correct configuration. Going by the wire colour is not helpful, as these cheap clone companies do not have a high rate of maintaining accuracy over time, nor would they indeed keep to Nintendo Co., Ltd's  original colouring arrangement.

It's very easy to check with any kind of continuity tester, but otherwise, you need to trace the wire to the pin on the 4021,or whatever S->P SSR is being used. Now, that stated, I haven't any idea how difficult it is to open the controller housings. I'd be more than happy to inspect and document them if I had one, but I'm not into any of the modern clone HW--only the early full-IC clones--thus, in Yoda language "Have one I do not.'.

With no response from the OP, I expect this was resolved on NESDev or somewhere else; an update from the OP would be greatly appreciated to either continue or close this thread. 

[Jamtex]

Given that real Famicoms and real Super Famicoms are normally quite cheap, why do people keep using these godawful clones with their bloody awful joypads?

[tonev]

You know that not all famiclones come with awful joypads... my nes famiclone came with some cool nes looking game pads with turbo buttons