JammaCon

This is a project I started a long time ago and just recently go around to completing the majority of it. It basically is an interface to lets you easily hook up a game console to a Jamma compatible cabinet.

Consists of two pieces:

1. JammaCon board
2. Console specific daughter boards

The main JammaCon board which hooks up to the cabinet and the consoles SCART output, this handles the audio/video amplification and getting the controls connected up. The video is processed using a TLS1233n preamp and LM1881 sync stripper, the audio amp is a simple LM384 amplifier.

The controls for both players -  joystick/coin/start and buttons 1-4 are picked up at the Jamma edge, buttons 4-6 can also be hooked up to the terminal blocks if needed. To make life a bit easier I put together a simple CPS1/CPS2 kickharness adapter to avoid having to splice looms.


The second piece are the interchangeable daughter boards,which simulate the controllers for the various consoles. These are built using (where possible) the same logic as the original controllers for maximum compatibility.

Picking which consoles to make daughter boards for was a no-brainer for the 8 bit & 16 bit generations - all of them if possible !! Most of the controllers of that era used simple serialisers or muxes and are easy to simulate, so any console capable of RGB output should be supported.

Of the 32 bit era, the Sega Saturn has native RGB out and a decent selection of games available which would work well in an arcade cabinet. The Amiga CD32 is also a good candidate as it can be RGB modded relatively easily. But will be while before the 3DO or CDi ever gets an adapter made I imagine !!

Later console generations that largely depend on analogue controls are a poor fit when it comes to mapping them to a single 8 way digital joystick. Exception to this would be the Playstation(s) owing to the decent amount of games available that don't require the analogue controls.

So far I've got daughter boards completed for:

• SNES & NES
• Megadrive & Master System
• PC-Engine
• Sega Saturn
• Playstation & Playstation 2

Have working prototypes for Amiga CD32.

Also plan on a simple board to fan out the controls to terminal blocks for anyone looking to build 'padhacks' for consoles I'm not developing daughter boards for.

JammaCon without controller adapter fitted

Full selection of boards available so far

Video of the boards in action..