Monthly Archives: December 2012

Hook an Atari 2600 joystick up to an iPad, thanks to Teensy 2.0

  • 2014/03/16 Update: The source code to this is now on GitHub. Check the Arduino link at the top of each page of this site.

“As seen on the Teensy Project Page.”

I recently gained some experience using Arduinos to control inputs in a local haunted house attraction, and that has opened up quite a world of projects. During my research, I learned about the Teensy 2.0, a cheap (starting at $16, http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/index.html) controller that is similar to Arduino, but had more I/O pins than the Arduino Uno, plus had the ability to act like a USB keyboard or mouse. This enables it to send keystrokes or mouse movements/clicks to a computer, as if it were receiving them from an input device.

So, using the $19 version of Teensy 2.0 (that has header pins) and some wires, I was able to connect my Atari Flashback 2 joystick to an iPad via the USB adapter. I wrote a small program that reads the I/O pins of the Teensy 2.0, then sends out USB keyboard commands that emulate the iCade arcade controller.

My project was noted on the Teensy 2.0 project page:

http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/projects.html

I will be posting full notes and the code as soon as I have a moment to work on it.

Teensy 2.0 as an Atari 2600 joystick interface for iOS