Retropad Bindings for Atari 2600

Capeman

Does anybody know the retropad bindings for Atari 2600 beyond the basic controls? The wiki image is incomplete and only has the default bindings for up/down/left/right and button, but doesn't have the button bindings for the console switches like select game / player 1 and 2 difficulty, reset and color/bw.

I've determined that select game is "select" but I can't seem to figure out which buttons will toggle difficulty switches. Here is the wiki image with some modification to illustrate what I'm trying to find, haha.

mediamogul

@Capeman

I don't think those functions are currently supported in lr-stella.

Capeman

I feel like the difficulty switches might be supported, somehow while playing Freeway my son gets it into hard mode (instead of the chicken falling back an inch, he shoots all the way to the beginning) - I could sit and experiment with it, but I'm feeling lazy today.

I'll probably go into the retroarch menu and see what's what, but I figured id ask here first.

Capeman

Ah, here we go... when loading up the retro arch menu, I found the difficulty switches are not toggle based, but each setting has it's own button, and they are all mapped to player 1, which I found odd since right difficulty is for player 2:

Left Difficulty A: L2
Left Difficulty B: L1
Right Difficulty A: R2
Right Difficulty B: R1
Select Game: Select
Reset: Start
Color: L3
B/W: R3

Now i get why my kid randomly could set the left difficulty harder but i could never set it back, since my cab only has 6 actions buttons on the player 1 side, the L2 and R2 buttons didnt have bindings. Looks like i need to do some remapping.

mediamogul

@Capeman

It's funny that in a game with only one action button, a kid still can't resist mashing every button they can when in a jam. I thought I had kid-proofed my arcade pretty well, but after a particularly tough game of 'Galaga', my nephew suddenly found himself playing Windows Notepad somehow.

Capeman

This is so true! haha, my son, niece and nephew go crazy on my bartop cab. Im glad Sanwa makes some pretty resilient joysticks, cuz they slam those things so hard up and down its ridiculous, haha! But hey, parts are replaceable and what fun is having an arcade if you can't watch your kids have fun on it!

dunnieboy

so - i must be an idiot .. how do I check the difficulty settings ?

edmaul69

@Capeman start is reset. Lr-stella does not have other functions. You need standalone stella for all the functions. Standalone stella also supports all atari peripherals.

Capeman

Read above, I found all the other bindings in LR-Stella, the difficulty switches are the R/L shoulders and triggers. All console switches (even bw/color) are supported in lr-Stella

spruce_m00se

Do you know where the keyboard shorcuts for these actions are documented?
I have made a 9pin dsub to usb adaptor so that I can use a competition pro and a joystick from a flashback 5 console. I just realised that button B is the fire button in the emulator, hence my mapping the button to A not working as expected.
I found enter starts the game, but thats it

edmaul69

@spruce_m00se to have all the controls on a keyboard go into the emulationstation men and configure controller. Set up all the buttons to the keyboard minus analogs. Then you can use it in games withall the controls.

dunnieboy

@edmaul69 isnt there a way to map the analogues as digital switches ? i swear i read that somewhere.

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/issues/1060

mahcneto

@mediamogul you know, this should be the default setting for Atari800Xl emulator as well, d-pad/analog stick for movement, one button as trigger, and every other button set for Start/Select/Options/Reset, the emulator menu, etc. I never could get your tutorial for custom mappings with the X360 driver to work :(

edmaul69

@dunnieboy sure if you want to set analogs to the keyboard. Not sure why you would need the analogs set to the keyboard since you already have the arrow keys.

mediamogul

@mahcneto said in Retropad Bindings for Atari 2600:

this should be the default setting for Atari800Xl emulator as well, d-pad/analog stick for movement, one button as trigger, and every other button set for Start/Select/Options/Reset

The problem with having only one control scheme is there are a wide array of input devices emulated in Atari800 and applying just one means that a section of the library is always unplayable. I was able to implement a single mapping for all occasions that switches between digital and analog input via a toggle with xboxdrv, but unfortunately the same level of flexibility can't be found in the emulator alone.

I never could get your tutorial for custom mappings with the X360 driver to work :(

I'm sorry to hear that. If you decide to give it another go in the future and need some help, just give me a shout.

space cadet

I completely forgot about the difficulty toggle switches on the 2600! I do remember that a genesis controller would plug in and work instead of the Atari controller.

mediamogul

@space-cadet

On the flip side, I beat 'Sonic the Hedgehog' with an Atari2600 controller back in high school. I was the coolest kid who ever got shoved in a locker.

edmaul69

@mediamogul i wish i wasnt already stuck in the locker when you got shoved in. :)

mediamogul

@edmaul69

Ha! A couple of more people and we could have set a record... or died horribly.

spruce_m00se

@edmaul69 I get the impression that they are set by default, I have a keyboard that isnt configd in ES , and in ES it does nothing, the enter button starts a game, the ESC exits the emulator and I pressed something last ngiht that changed the colour scheme of the game when playing.... but I didnt catch which button it was, there is defo something set up by standard here.
Also , even if you map the only button on the joystick as B in ES in order to make it work in the emulator, it still works as A in ES. almost as if someone has put some thought into it and knows you need an A in ES and a B in the EMU.