I am back to thinking about a joystick for the Model 100. I have a
specific reason in mind and even a specific joystick.
My intent is to target the Atari/Commodore 64 digital joystick interface
mainly because my inspiration is the Suncom Icontroller which mounts to
the side of the machine.
This interface is a series of 5 discrete switches to control direction
and a fire button. Very basic.
While the parallel port would have been ideal for something like this,
it is not bidirectional and offers only two inputs.
The serial port provides 3 inputs; still not enough
While some multiplexing strategies might allow this to work, both of
those ports are also often used for other important purposes.
So I started thinking about the barcode port. It only has one input, but
the joystick could be encoded into a serial stream. Maybe even using the
original barcode drivers. I don't know the specifics of the BCR
implementation here, but often they are just keyboard wedges.
Any thoughts on this or a better solution?
