Gigatron Hackers

This was made by ordering PCBs from JLPCB in China, and sourcing all the bits from Farnell, Mouser and Digikey:
It works!
Sort of. I've hacked up a knock-off SNES controller to the 9 pin port. The Gigatron just acts like lots of random inputs are being pressed, and nothing I do on the controller makes any difference. I'll write up a post on the support page for this.

Anyway, hello!

Welcome and congratulations, there are many threads about controllers, SW, HW and the different types supported, I would do a quick search if I was you.

Are you able to tell what IC the knock off controller uses inside? I'm assuming it's hidden under a glob top. If you have the parts handy, it's fairly trivial to build a CD4021B or 74xx165 based NES controller if you want a guarantee of compatibility.

https://www.raphnet.net/electronique/ar ... rol_en.php
https://github.com/BenBergman/uJoypad/t ... /schematic

It's not potted, but it doesn't seem to have any markings.
I do like the custom "SECECT" button though, not seen that before

Thanks for the links - I've got some alternative controllers on the way from AliExpress, but I'll go dig through my bits box and see if I've got any 74LS165s lurking around.

Received some "famiclone" controllers from AliExpress, and they *sort of* work. The Gigatron recognises input from these, but causes one of my monitors to go black when it's plugged in. Random unplugging/plugging back in can make it come back to life some of the time.

So, an 74LS165 from eBay (made in W.Germany!), a bit of breadboard, some resistors and a spare 74HC04 inverter, and I've knocked up a controller circuit that works perfectly. No screen blanking at all with this. Playing Snake by touching a ground wire to resistor legs is a bit too hard though

Just need to 3D print a box and solder up some switches. I guess the "Famiclone" controller was interfering with the H/V sync signals too much for my old monitor to cope with.