Nice setup!

Yea only 2 pins are used for midi (So midi is serial...)

I remember soldering my own gameport spliiter cables. There was also a company selling Competition Pro digital joysticks for the PC, but they only had 1 button, so I soldered a second lead just so I could have a second button 😁

You should be able to use 2 joysticks + midi if you solder a cable with all the right connectors...

pin purpose
1 potentiometer common (Joy A)
2 button 1 (Joy A)
3 X coordinate potentiometer (Joy A)
4 button common (Joy A)
5 button common (Joy B)
6 Y coordinate potentiometer (Joy A)
7 button 2 (Joy A)
8 unused
9 potentiometer common (Joy B)
10 button 1 (Joy B)
11 X coordinate potentiometer (Joy B)
12 MIDI transmit (computer -> midi)
13 Y coordinate potentiometer (Joy B)
14 button 2 (Joy B)
15 MIDI receive (midi -> computer)

Thanks for the detailed information. I'm not good with soldering, but I'm sure any useful information will come in handy some time. And, welcome to the club! 😁

Yep yep, two sticks and MPU-401 works just fine simultaneously. I used to hook one of my PCs (that had only a lowly SBPro) to my other PC that had a Wave Blaster mounted on an AWE32 card. Played lots of Tyrian like that, using the my gameport gamepads on the one PC, and piped the music to the Wave Blaster on the other 😀

Not to mention, I currently use a joystick remapper and my MIDI keyboard (under WXP with my SBLive); to remap joystick events to various MIDI controllers.

Does this work with one of these - http://www.pccables.com/joystick_splitter.html - or does it have to made in a certain way?

Look at how pins 12 and 15 are connected. You won't be able to connect a joystick to connector "A" and simultaneously connect pins 12 and 15 to a MIDI device.

The only way that cable might work is for a game that can recognize two joysticks and will let you play with joystick B, and even then only if the joystick isn't expecting Pin 8 to provide +5 VDC.

Yup, I've used MIDI + 2 joysticks forever on my SB Pro 2.0.
First connect the MIDI kit directly to the SB port, then connect the Y-cable to the joystick port on the MIDI kit.

2 joystick ports is actually quite standard in an IBM joystick connector. If you have a dedicated joystick card with two 15-pin connectors, you can usually use two Y-cables for 4 joysticks in total.

Smack2k wrote:

Does this work with one of these - http://www.pccables.com/joystick_splitter.html - or does it have to made in a certain way?

Depends what kind of MIDI cables and joysticks you already have.

I have to assume your MIDI adapter does not have joystick pass-through and you are trying to connect MIDI adapter to other port and single joystick to another? This won't work - you'd have to connect the MIDI adapter to primary joystick port (that can be used to connect 4-axix/4-button/special joysticks) because the secondary joystick connector does not have MIDI pins and with MIDI adapter on primary you can only connect a standard 2-axis/2-button joystick for player 2, and even then it is required not to use the pin 8 for power. If you manage to find a joystick that works on secondary port, even then the primary joystick for player 1 must be a standard 2-axis/2-button as well or the two joysticks will conflict with each other.

If your MIDI adaptor has a pass-through connection for joysticks, it may or may not remove the MIDI pins from the joystick and put power pins there instead, so there is a chance that any joystick can be used with it. Either a single special joystick, or by using the Y cable you posted, two standard 2-axis/2-button joysticks.

So from the looks of it, you'd have better luck with MIDI + joysticks if you bought a MIDI adaptor that has joystick pass-through connection. These usually don't come with Y cable feature built-in so if you want to connect more than one joystick then you need an Y cable as well.

I will check my adapter cable and see if it has an additional joystick port on it...didnt think of that.