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Interfacing Tandy Joystick Ports (1000HX)

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First post, by Hamby

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I have a Tandy 1000hx coming in the mail in a few days, so I've been looking into what I can do with it (play with it...)
Actual tandy joysticks are few and expensive on ebay.
So I looked up the pinouts on the Tandy joystick port, and it does seem possible to adapt a normal (old) PC joystick. I found one tutorial, which required a wire soldered in the joystick, which I'd rather avoid.

So that got me wondering... could I interface a Commodore 1350/1351 mouse to the tandy joystick ports? I'm assuming a serial or PS/2 mouse couldn't be interfaced?
Could I adapt a PC joystick port Midi cable to the Tandy joystick port(s), and thus communicate with, say, an MT-32?

Does anyone have any experience interfacing the Tandy joystick ports?

Thanks for any info anyone cares to share.

Reply 2 of 6, by derSammler

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As for the Commodore 1350: that acts as a normal, Atari-compatible joystick. If you can convert a Atari-compatible joystick to work on the Tandy, the 1350 will work as well. Note, however, that it's not really a mouse...

Reply 3 of 6, by Hamby

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As I said in another message, I just got a Tandy 1000hx.
It has the two TRS-80 style joystick ports.
I've found an article on making an adapter for PC style joysticks.
Would it be possible to make an adapter for it to work with PC style (ps/2) mice, or the CBM 1351 mouse (or 1350?) or even an Amiga mouse?
I'd like to be able to use a mouse with the system...

Also, would it be possible to make a MIDI adapter for one or both joystick ports? (that would be a project for down the road so I could connect it to a sequencer or, better, keyboard).
Should I look into using an arduino of some kind for all this, or would that be overkill?

Reply 5 of 6, by Hamby

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derSammler wrote on 2020-03-27, 07:50:

Didn't you post exactly that some weeks ago? I know for sure, because I replied to it.

//edit:
Interfacing Tandy Joystick Ports (1000HX)

Yes, I went looking for it and couldn't find it, so concluded that either it got deleted for inactivity or I posted it somewhere else.
should I delete this posting, or that one?

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