Intellivision Pi4 Controller Setup

Agrajag

I'm finally starting to get a small feel for how Retropie works and decided to see if I could get Intellivision going, though I only really care about three, maybe four games on the system, but one is perhaps my favorite emulation game on any system: The Dreadnaught Factor.

So I followed a thread on this site and got everything running using jzintv.

Is that still the best emulation to be using in 2021 on a pi4?
I do have a keyboard set up, but I'd like to use it in combination with my Mayflash F500 fight stick (which I did before when I ran it on my PC way back). I'd just use the keyboard to essentially hit the number keys. So, there's a thread suggesting I must create what looks like a pretty complicated process of creating a keyboard hack file. Is this still the way to do this, or is there an easier method now?
I tried to use a cool app called UniversalController that runs on your Android phone and presents an Intellivision controller and overlays (and the same for ColecoVision). That's COOL, but I'd still only want to use it for keypad entry. The problem is, I could NOT get my Pi to show itself for the phone to connect to it via Bluetooth. Anyone have any ideas on this?

Thanks!

retropioneer

@agrajag
I'm running a Pi4 and use jzintv but have tried lr-freeintv which is good too. I've stuck with jzintv because once you've got your head around the hackfiles, it's pretty flexible and you can map exactly what you want on a per-game basis.

To create the hackfiles, I use 'event_diag.rom' to give me the key / joystick values for my controller and create a hackfile for each game mapping the key / joystick values to those expected in the hackfile, e.g. XBox controller D-Pad north is JS0_HAT0_N which I've mapped to the hackfile PD0L_KP2 for left controller keypad 2. I do this in a spreadsheet because I've mapped lots of games, probably overkill for you though.

I put the hackfile in the roms folder, then edit /opt/retropie/configs/intellivision/emulators.cfg so it includes your hackfile as a new emulator, e.g.

DungeonsDragons = "/opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/bin/jzintv -z4 -p /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS -q --kbdhackfile=/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision/DungeonsDragons.cfg %ROM%"

When your game starts up, point it to this 'emulator' and you're good to go. I find this works really well for most of the games but some really need the overlays (I've a homemade controller for this lol). I've not tried UniversalController so can't advise but it sounds interesting.

Agrajag

@retropioneer You didn't happen to do one for Dreadnaught Factor did you? I'd be curious to see every line of what that looks like (not that it would match my device, but just for curiosity).

retropioneer

@agrajag
Sure, here it is

; -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MAP 0 ; keymap 0 (default keymap)
; -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
F3 PAUSE
JS0_BTN_10 QUIT
JS1_BTN_10 QUIT
; ***** Joystick #0 - Left Controller *****
; ** Side Buttons and Numeric Keypad **
JS0_BTN_01 PD0L_A_T
JS0_BTN_04 PD0L_A_L
JS0_BTN_05 PD0L_A_R
1 PD0L_KP1
2 PD0L_KP2
3 PD0L_KP3
4 PD0L_KP4
5 PD0L_KP5
6 PD0L_KP6
7 PD0L_KP7
8 PD0L_KP8
9 PD0L_KP9
BACKSPACE PD0L_KPC
0 PD0L_KP0
RETURN PD0L_KPE
 
; ** Direction Disc **
JS0_N PD0L_J_N
JS0_NNE PD0L_J_NNE
JS0_NE PD0L_J_NE
JS0_ENE PD0L_J_ENE
JS0_E PD0L_J_E
JS0_ESE PD0L_J_ESE
JS0_SE PD0L_J_SE
JS0_SSE PD0L_J_SSE
JS0_S PD0L_J_S
JS0_SSW PD0L_J_SSW
JS0_SW PD0L_J_SW
JS0_WSW PD0L_J_WSW
JS0_W PD0L_J_W
JS0_WNW PD0L_J_WNW
JS0_NW PD0L_J_NW
JS0_NNW PD0L_J_NNW
 
; ***** Joystick #1 - Right Controller *****
; ** Side Buttons and Numeric Keypad **
JS1_BTN_01 PD0R_A_T
JS1_BTN_04 PD0R_A_L
JS1_BTN_05 PD0R_A_R
Q PD0R_KP1
W PD0R_KP2
E PD0R_KP3
R PD0R_KP4
T PD0R_KP5
Y PD0R_KP6
U PD0R_KP7
I PD0R_KP8
O PD0R_KP9
TAB PD0R_KPC
P PD0R_KP0
SPACE PD0R_KPE
 
; ** Direction Disc **
JS1_N PD0R_J_N
JS1_NNE PD0R_J_NNE
JS1_NE PD0R_J_NE
JS1_ENE PD0R_J_ENE
JS1_E PD0R_J_E
JS1_ESE PD0R_J_ESE
JS1_SE PD0R_J_SE
JS1_SSE PD0R_J_SSE
JS1_S PD0R_J_S
JS1_SSW PD0R_J_SSW
JS1_SW PD0R_J_SW
JS1_WSW PD0R_J_WSW
JS1_W PD0R_J_W
JS1_WNW PD0R_J_WNW
JS1_NW PD0R_J_NW
JS1_NNW PD0R_J_NNW