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Subject: Hacking the GC Hori Pad
Quite some time ago I really wanted to use my NeoGeo joystick on the GameCube. Hudson had released Star Soldier, and it was a great game, but you had to frantically pound the fire button to get the best weapon... And this was nigh impossible with a regular GC pad. It was only moderately easier with Hori's SNES-style GameCube pad... And since I didn't have a GC joystick available, I needed to come up with something better.
And this was it. In a somewhat sacriligeous move I hacked up a Hori GC pad, not knowing that years later they'd be somewhat rare.
...Actually I probably wouldn't have cared. =)
This image was for my own benefit: where to cut, without wiping out any components I needed, and what trace on the PCB was for what button. It was easier to do it this way than try to figure it out after cutting the PCB... In hindsight I could just as easily have made notes on a piece of paper...
![[Image: http://nfgcontrols.com/grafx/technical/GC_padhack1.jpg]](http://nfgcontrols.com/grafx/technical/GC_padhack1.jpg "http://nfgcontrols.com/grafx/technical/GC_padhack1.jpg")
I was quite lucky that every necessary component of this pad was in a small cluster. Once cut, I had only to run a handful of wires from this central area to the DB15 connector... Presto! Instant NeoGeo -> GameCube adaptor.
The final touch was, of course, to shove the entire contents into a gutted Dreamcast 3rd-party memory card... It fit remarkably well.
![[Image: http://nfgcontrols.com/grafx/technical/GC_padhack2.jpg]](http://nfgcontrols.com/grafx/technical/GC_padhack2.jpg "http://nfgcontrols.com/grafx/technical/GC_padhack2.jpg")
And this was it. In a somewhat sacriligeous move I hacked up a Hori GC pad, not knowing that years later they'd be somewhat rare.
...Actually I probably wouldn't have cared. =)
This image was for my own benefit: where to cut, without wiping out any components I needed, and what trace on the PCB was for what button. It was easier to do it this way than try to figure it out after cutting the PCB... In hindsight I could just as easily have made notes on a piece of paper...
I was quite lucky that every necessary component of this pad was in a small cluster. Once cut, I had only to run a handful of wires from this central area to the DB15 connector... Presto! Instant NeoGeo -> GameCube adaptor.
The final touch was, of course, to shove the entire contents into a gutted Dreamcast 3rd-party memory card... It fit remarkably well.
![[Image: http://nfggames.com/system/arcade/special.php/b-d/bp-5/y-kof97/z-10/x-40C%20is%20too%20hot%20for%20humans./.png]](http://nfggames.com/system/arcade/special.php/b-d/bp-5/y-kof97/z-10/x-40C%20is%20too%20hot%20for%20humans./.png "http://nfggames.com/system/arcade/special.php/b-d/bp-5/y-kof97/z-10/x-40C%20is%20too%20hot%20for%20humans./.png")