Joysticks & controllers
Joysticks and game controllers, Kempston, and joystick interfaces.
24 threads · 200 messages · 2003-02-19 → 2025-06-03
Across both eras of the list, the foundational answer the group kept arriving at is that the TS2068's built-in twin joystick ports are not Kempston — they're a Timex-specific design read through the AY-8912 sound chip, even though the connectors are standard DB9 wired for Atari 2600-style 5-switch sticks. That technical baseline was nailed down in the Yahoo era (Mister Beep's 2010 "TS2068 JOYSTICK ports?" thread is the canonical reference, with Fred pointing at the AY and Darrell S. posting a full pin-by-pin table), and it has been re-explained to every newcomer since. A direct consequence — discussed in both eras — is that unmodified Spectrum games can't talk to the 2068's ports without a Kempston-style interface or a 'twister' adapter, which is why the rarely-seen TS2090 Command Stick interface (a Timex-Portugal-branded Kempston, as Al Hartman noted in 2012) keeps coming up as a 'holy grail' item on eBay and Etsy.
Compatibility with real hardware was largely an empirical exercise. In the groups.io era Adam Trionfo and Carl Miles worked through what does and doesn't plug in safely — Atari 2600 sticks are fine, Atari 7800 sticks turn out to be fine too (verified by Adam after a long pause, using his Edladdin Supreme 78 on a Boulder Dash clone), but the 2068 has no paddle support and many Spectrum cart ports simply don't bother to read the 2068 ports. Carl's short STICK(n,n) BASIC tester from the Feb 2025 ABQ meeting became the group's standard diagnostic for a flaky port, and Kevin Steinhaus's earlier 'Nice Joystick tester' (by Ariel from Portugal, posted to the PD-catalog thread) does the same job while also probing a Kempston interface.
The ZX81/TS1000 side is messier because, as Claudius reminded the list, there was never a single joystick standard — period articles in SYNC and Sinc-Link describe several incompatible schemes, and David's site collects them. Modern consensus on the groups.io side has settled on the ZX-Pand / progjoy (JOY81) approach: GAL-based programmable joysticks that let you remap each direction to whatever keys a given program expects, sidestepping the old 5/6/7/8 vs. cursor-keys problem. Larry Lorenson surfaced the JOY81 design from sinclairzxworld in 2025, and Carl Miles immediately rolled it into his new TS1068 PCB alongside ZX-Wespi video — a nice example of the recent-era hardware projects directly absorbing solutions the Yahoo-era community had only been able to wish for.
A recurring side-thread, also bridging both eras, is what else you can do with the joystick port. As far back as 2003 (Yahoo), aralbrec and Alvin noticed that the 2068's connector exposes +5V, ground, strobe and five data lines — enough, in principle, to drive a mouse with a small PIC; Yarek Adamski sketched an 8251A+MAX232 design in the same thread. That idea kept resurfacing: Bruno Florindo's 2024 question about the Velesoft PS/2/USB mouse interface, Joao Encarnado's 2023 experiment reading serial data through port 502 on the AY, and David's reminder in 2023 that Stewart Newfeld's adapted Wico Trackballs are the only 'custom' TS controllers anyone can actually remember seeing.
Key threads
- TS2068 JOYSTICK ports? (archive.org) — Yahoo-era canonical answer: the 2068's ports are not Kempston — they're Timex-specific, read via the AY chip — with Darrell S.'s full DB9 pinout. Every later compatibility question traces back to this.
- TS2090 joystick on ebay (archive.org) — Yahoo-era identification of the TS2090 Command Stick interface as a Timex-Portugal-branded Kempston (Al Hartman), and the start of its 'holy grail' reputation that recurs in 2024-25 eBay/Etsy posts.
- Hello (2068 joystick connector as expansion bus) (archive.org) — Earliest recorded observation (2003) that the 2068 joystick port exposes +5V/GND/strobe/5 data lines — enough to drive a mouse. Seed of every later 'repurpose the joystick port' idea, including Joao Encarnado's 2023 serial-via-AY experiment.
- Atari 7800 Controller on T/S 2068? (#62 on groups.io) — Groups.io-era empirical compatibility check with Carl Miles's full multi-machine Atari pinout table, and Adam Trionfo's eventual confirmation that the Edladdin Supreme 78 7800 stick is safe to use on a real 2068.
- TS2068 Joystick Compatibility (#1120 on groups.io) — Concise restatement of the rules for newcomers: 2068 takes 2600-style sticks, no paddles, and Spectrum ports of games (e.g. Montezuma's Revenge cart) usually don't read the 2068's ports at all.
- ZX81 Joystick Plans? (#3025 on groups.io) — Best summary of the ZX81/TS1000 mess — David's pointer to the SYNC/Sinc-Link archive of competing schemes, Claudius's note that there was never one standard, and the early mention of ZX-Pand as the modern remedy.
- T/S 2068 PD Software Catalog? (Nice Joystick tester) (#704 on groups.io) — Branches into Kevin Steinhaus's posting of Ariel's joystick-test program that probes 2068 Port 1, Port 2, and Kempston — the de facto community diagnostic before Carl's later STICK() one-liner.
- programmable joystick (#8166 on groups.io) — Most recent (2025) culmination: Larry surfaces the JOY81/progjoy GAL-based programmable joystick from sinclairzxworld and Carl integrates it directly into his new TS1068 PCB — a modern-era hardware project answering a decades-old ZX81 compatibility problem.
All threads (24)
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