Sega Genesis joystick controller pinout

Sega genesist used a little but different approach in joystick connection than Atari. The Sega joytick pinout seems to be the "standard" 2 button joystick configuration where pins 6 and 9 are used for buttons which ground the pin when pressed. The only strange thing is that the joystick seems to want +5V also at pin 5. Sega has added more buttons to it"s newer joystick models (there are 3 and 6 button models). Those joysticks use basically the same interface, but more buttons are added by extra electronics which multiplexes the new button signals with the existing joystick signals using control bit in connector pin 7. The chip inside the controller is a 74HC157. This is a high-speed cmos quad 2-line to 1-line multiplexer. The console can with help of the Select-pin choose from two functions on each input.

How to connect Sega Genesis joystick to PC ?

It is possible to adapt a joystick originally developed for Genesis to a PC. After connecting joystick to PC parallel port, you must install a driver so the operating system understands that the device connected is a joystick.

DB25                DB9
25 pin D-sub        9 pin d-sub
male                male
1--------------------------1
2--------------------------7
3--->|---|
4--->|---|
5--->|---|
6--->|---|-----------------5
7--->|---|
8--->|---|
9--->|---|
10-------------------------3
11-------------------------4
12-------------------------6
13-------------------------9
14-------------------------2
18,19----------------------8

->| means 1N4148 diode

The diodes better to be soldered inside the DB25 connector. Joystick with this cable will work only after manual drivers install. DirectPad drivers for Windows 2000 or XP may be downloaded from http://www.emulatronia.com/reportajes/directpad/ntpad.zip.