I seriously doubt that capacitors have anything to do with it in this case.
There's a photo of the card. it only shows one electrolytic and a bunch of ceramics.
While I've heard and experienced smd ceramics go short, even open circuit. Those old ceramic disc capacitors would have even more visible damage to produce such effects.
secondly, there's a 556 on the pcb. which is used for the X & Y axis of one joystick, and only one joystick. two ceramics per axis and one for decoupling.
The buttons have nothing to do with those ceramics.
Those behind the parallel port are there for the parallel port. Also nothing to do with the gameport buttons.
The other five chips next to the 556 are receivers & transmitters for the serial ports.
I am thinking this card only supports one joystick with two buttons and no more.
Now it does seem like another multi IO card with the Prime 2C chipset can disable the gameport.
Unfortunately I haven't found any card ,yet , with the Prime 2 chipset that can disable the gameport.
It sure would be nice to find a datasheet for the goldstar prime2 chip.
... I'm posting this already and then trying to find that schematic that was posted recently which I think was for a multi io card. orcad etc... meh.
edit : that was for an smc multi io card, and that card also only has support for one joystick (X,Y) with only two buttons.
download/file.php?id=161014&mode=view
edit2:
jedikwon, Which sound card are you using? Do you have any with an onboard IDE port which can be set as primary IDE ?
edit3: it could be that the 74LS367 serves a similar purpose as the 74LS244 in the SMC multi io schematic. disabling the gameport there might be possible if that assumption is true.
edit4: from looking at the photo it would imply changing the state of pin 1 of the 74LS367. you might need to desolder it and ... connect it to +5v ? Can someone verify this idea ?
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https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port