Mod Advice? Atari Arcade Joystick for iPad by Duo

This is a thrift-shop score. It has okay stick & button feel, and a good base. The plan is to make it a general-purpose PC stick.

I didn't find much online about this unit, so here's a general description for posterity.

The PCB supports the 4 buttons, two IC, and two sockets. One socket for the stick and the other for 6 wires to the 30-pin dock: 3.3V, GND, P10, H/L, RXD, TXD.

The iPad dock connector is a true dock, meaning it's a combination of ports such as Firewire, USB, AV, power. The connector is found on iPhones, iPods, and iPads, and the pins are not standardized. They change as hardware changed so you need to be more doubting than usual of online info.

The dock connector was replaced by Lightning the year after the Atari Arcade was released, which probaby didn't help sales. I found the FCC test of a bluetooth version, but no indication it was released.

The ICs are PIC18F24J10 and a quad VCA SSM2164. I'll wild-guess the amp is to refine the signal of either the joystick switches or the buttons. And I presume the PIC combines the signals into a form expected by the Duo software installed on the iPad. Online reviews indicate this wasn't a general purpose controller -- it only worked with associated Atari games via the Duo app.

Which I think means I can't use the PCB for a PC arcade stick. I can't discard it easily because it supports the buttons, so it seems the way forward is cut traces and substitute a PCB from a windows-friendly controller. The base is pretty stable and even rather fetching, so there's no immediate need to replace it with a custom box.

Currently my expendable controllers are a SNES clone and various PS2. I have USB adaptors for both.

I'm leaning to running wires as a cable to a custom socket on the mock-SNES, then simply resting the pad in the base's slot. This keeps the un-replaced buttons handy for menu work, and the mock-SNES can be unplugged for standalone use.

Or so I'm thinking. I'm a mod-idiot, and may be back-to-front in a number of ways here. Please dive-in with better ideas, observations, and banter.

The characters on the joystick bottom plate are Down Right Up Left, clockwise from the pin. The buttons show no make/model and have a buckling-spring action.

 

Seems pretty pointless to turn something like this into a standard PC stick but if you wanted to do it the easiest way would be to reprogram the PIC to use all the same wiring on the PCB but be a USB HID device. Then you just have to change the cable that goes to the apple connector, probably with something to step down the voltage.

 

Frankenstick achieved.

Turns out it's not terrible. It's not as good as a proper stick, but it is serviceable, and much better than that pad. Qualifies as cheap fun.