Jul 30, 2007

Using parallel port joypad/joystick with Linux

Introduction
My parallel port joystick is a Sony PSX controller type. I have no problem using it on windows(directpad pro drivers on win9x, ntpad on winnt/2k/xp), but on linux I find the solution to use it for a log time. Finally I found the solution on kernel source's document file /usr/src/linux/Documentation/input/joystick-parport.txt . The driver for this type of joystick is gamecon.c .

Activate your joystick
Using gamecon.c you can connect up to five devices to one parallel port. It uses the following kernel/module command line:
$ sudo modeprobe gamecon map=port,pad1,pad2,pad3,pad4,pad5
Where 'port' is the number of the parport interface (eg. 0 for parport0).And 'pad1' to 'pad5' are pad types, The types are:
Type | Joystick/Pad
--------------------
0 | None
1 | SNES pad
2 | NES pad
4 | Multisystem 1-button joystick
5 | Multisystem 2-button joystick
6 | N64 pad
7 | Sony PSX controller
8 | Sony PSX DDR controller

if you have lp module load, remove it first.
$ sudo rmmod lp
for PSX joypad on parallel port
$ sudo modprobe gamecon map=0,7

check kernel message by 'dmesg' command you should something look like below:
' input: PSX controller as /class/input/input5 '
Then you can test joystick by :
$ jstest /dev/input/js0
note: the device node /dev/input/js0 is created by automatically if you use devfs/udev , so you don't need to create manually .
If you don't use devfs,you'll have to manually create these nodes in /dev:
# cd /dev
# rm js*
# mkdir input
# mknod input/js0 c 13 0
# mknod input/js1 c 13 1
# mknod input/js2 c 13 2
# mknod input/js3 c 13 3
# ln -s input/js0 js0
# ln -s input/js1 js1
# ln -s input/js2 js2
# ln -s input/js3 js3
For testing with input-utils it's also convenient to create these:
# mknod input/event0 c 13 64
# mknod input/event1 c 13 65
# mknod input/event2 c 13 66
# mknod input/event3 c 13 67

*** May the force be with you,Good Luck!!!



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