PS/2 Keyboard to USB issues.

[cuttsj]

Hello everyone :)

I wanted to share my experience with using a PS/2 to USB joystick dongle, and some fixes I had discovered.

First off, I understand that my setup is rather old at this point, but I was determined to make sure it could still work. It uses a PS/2 out, but the Retropie 3 that I have only has USB.

So I first tried this little green dongle that didn't work very well.
The main issue I was having was that I couldn't input direction + button press. One or the other would cancel out the input, and nothing would happen.

I then tried this Monoprice PS/2 to USB converter adapter and so far it works great!

The issue I had before of the inputs cancelling each out out went away. I've attached some pictures of my setup and the cables used.

I had a difficult time finding a solution online. so hopefully this helps someone else out :).

[Lolonois]

Thanks for sharing.

To put it this way: Your Retro-Gaming setup is vintage itself (due to PS/2). :)

However, makes sense to use the Monoprice adapter when "things just shall work with little effort".

These green / violet all-in-one adapters are "dumb" adapters (=only rewiring): The logic is expected to be in the device (mouse/keyboard) which protocol to use (PS/2 or USB).

For other Googlers: With some tinkering one could also use four GP2040-CE devices (https://gp2040-ce.info/) or wire the controllers directly via four MCP23017 IO expander boards to the Rpi's GPIO (and use Arcade-DT (https://github.com/Gemba/arcade-dt) as driver) - Disclaimer: I am the maintainer of the latter project.

With these two options the input lag (PS/2 -> Converter to USB -> USB) could be minimized, which could be an issue esp. with Street Fighter ;-)

[cuttsj]

@Lolonois Thank you very much for your feedback. I'll look into your suggestions :).