USBasp + NES = Hackaday mashup

Inspiration

I have been playing around with Betemcu, a version of the USBasp AVR programmer, for a while.  I originally read about Project Ouroboros from the following Hackaday post:

Dev board from an AVR programmer

So after a software upgrade it ends up as an Atmega8 dev board wired up perfectly for use with V-USB, a software USB stack for AVR MCUs.  I have been having fun using this as a low cost ($<10 delivered) dev board and I have some of my own project planned for the future. A few weeks ago I came across this Hackaday post:

USB dongle for unmodified NES controllers

Which is a USB dongle for an NES controller using V-USB.

V-USB Hardware + V-USB Software =

Mashup

The light bulb came on, and when I got home I whipped up the following.

I already had the Betemcu USBasp, the NES controller and the controller jack from an NES autopsy. I little modification to the code and I had a working NES controller on my PC.  I love it when a plan comes together.

Pinout

I chose pins that were available on the ISP connector of the Betemcu USBasp and mapped them to the NES controller.

Code

The code for the USB – NES adapter was intended for an ATtiny45 so minor code changes were made to match the pinout, some code for the fuses was commented out and the make file was updated for the Atmega8.  I believe I also needed to delete “usbdrvasm.o” file. For specifics changes compare the code below to the original.

USB NES Betemcu-USBASP.zip

More Info

See the Project Ten Pin for more information.

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