Super simple Protovision-Compatible Joystick Expander for MEGA65

This post isn't a feature that I had originally planned for the MEGA65, but came about from playing games on the MEGA65 with the kids.  Two kids plus one Dad = 3 players, but of course only two joystick ports, a recipe for problems.  Fortunately, there are some fun games that support 3 or 4 players, mostly using the excellent Protovision 4-port joystick adapter, but it requires a user port, which the MEGA65 doesn't have.

We thought about including a user port on the MEGA65, but the extra cost from making the PCB quite a lot bigger was prohibitive, especially since we don't expect that many people to need the userport -- with the possible exception of playing four player games.

However, rather than say there shall forever be no user port, we decided that instead that we would create a cartridge that turns the expansion port into a user port, in a way that is totally transparent to software.  Thus, it just means you can use either the expansion port or the user port at any point in time, which probably solves the needs of almost all users, especially since the MEGA65 has built in freezer, RAM expansion, ethernet, microSD card and so on -- in short, there shouldn't be too much that you need to plug into the expansion port, unless you want to use a game cartridge, but then none of those (that I am aware of) require the user port at the same time.  The only device I can think of that would be a problem would be the combined cartridge + user port EEPROM burner I have stashed somewhere, but even then the cartridge ROM could be copied and run from RAM.  Let's just say that for the very few cases where you might want both ports that there are probably work-arounds, or you can pull out your real C64.

Anyway, since I had no user port, and wanted extra joystick ports, I thought I might solve both problems at the same time by creating a simplified version of what will eventually become the MEGA65 user port cartridge, that just provides two extra joystick ports.  I also want it to be as simple and cheap to build as possible, ideally using only passive components, perhaps even only wires to the joystick connectors and between pins on the expansion port.   I would also like the cartridge to not damage a C64 or C128 if it is inserted, which means it has to play nicely with the existing use of the expansion port.

What I came up with, was to make a cartridge that ties the /DMA line to ground, and then directly connect the joystick lines to the lower data and address bits.  This requires no active components at all.  Also, because pulling /DMA low causes the CPU of the C64 or C128 to pause, and thus release the address and data lines, it should be safe from that side.  For the VIC-II when connected to a real C64/C128, it isn't quite as simple, because the VIC-II can cause memory accesses, and can drive the address lines itself. This is all only a problem if you actually use a joystick, because if the joysticks are idle, then none of the lines are pulled low.  Thus, while the cartridge should never be inserted into a C64 on purpose (because it won't work), it shouldn't break anything. 

The safety of this could probably be improved by tying R/_W to GND, so that even if the VIC-II did ask for a memory access, the RAM will stay off the bus. Better yet, the cartridge should first detect the presence of a MEGA65 in some way.  The trick is how to do this passively.  Perhaps the most sensible approach is to find some signal we can drive to GND from the MEGA65 side, and that is normally high on the C64 or C128's expansion port.  This signal can then be used as the source for the GND line on the joysticks. The /RESET line is probably a good choice for this, as it is only very transiently low, and when it is low, the contents of the C64/C128 it is connected to should, by definition, all be silent and buses in tri-state conditions. Indeed, with this approach the only opportunity to cause grief would be if you tried to use the joystick while /RESET was active, which would require some degree of intentionality, and would be limited to a few microseconds, which is probably much too short to cause any damage to anything. 

In short, this sounds to me like quite a good and simple solution -- provided that the MEGA65's /RESET line on the expansion port can sink enough current.  If this proves to be a problem, the addition of a single drive transistor on the cartridge would certainly solve the problem. Thus, I think we are good to go.
EDIT: For my joysticks with lights, the current is too low, which causes the computer to think fire is being pressed when any direction is selected, because the current draw of the LED is already reducing the voltage enough to be marginal.  But as mentioned, this is easily fixed with the addition of a driving transistor.

All that was left was to implement the VHDL that detects the /DMA line being pulled down from start up.  Until such time as /DMA goes high (which would be immediately on any normal cartridge), then the expansion port goes into normal operation mode. However, if /DMA remains held low, then the expansion port disables itself, and instead sets up the data and address lines to input, pulls /RESET low, and reads data from the data and address lines and feeds them to the CIA that normally handles the user port and acts exactly as the Protovision joystick expander, so that software does not need to be modified at all.

I had an old broken MACH5 cartridge, whose ROM was lost long ago floating around, which I decided to use as the PCB, since all I needed to do was tack on the wires for the joystick, and connect /DMA to GND.  Here is the result:

 The eagle-eyed among you will notice that: (1) this is from before I came up with using /RESET as the GND for the joystick.  I'll be fixing that momentary. (2) There is only one joystick port connected. That's because I have only two children, and thus only needed 3 joysticks at the same time.

Here it is plugged into the MEGA65 prototype on my desk:

Now, as mentioned, I needed three joysticks. I had already made two arcade style joysticks some time back, but still needed an extra one. The two with red buttons were the ones I had made already.  So I went to Jaycar Electronics and bought parts for a third, although I accidentally got a larger box than I used for the other two.  Not a problem, we now have the two kid-sized joysticks and one "papa joystick", which is also identified by the green light.  So now I had three joysticks, and we could try some multiplayer games:

 

That's Shotgun that we are playing there, which is indeed MUCH more fun with more than two players.

 

We also had a go at frogs, which like shotgun is a free game from Dr. Wuro.  It is very nice that he has made some fun free games. We can now confirm that both work perfectly on the MEGA65, including with the extra joystick ports.

So now the kids and I can play games together on the MEGA65 all at once. We might even make a simple free multiplayer game of our own to celebrate.