The best laid plans of plugs and incompatible ports
I love old technology. I still believe old-timey cars are the handsomest automobiles that will ever exist, I much prefer the raw, non-streamlined look of old aircraft, and let’s face it, I’d sooner take an ancient kettle just for its display value than a modern one that, y’know, doesn’t blow up in your face if you leave it unattended.
I hate how hard it is to get rid of the stuff, though.
I have been seriously hoping to throw some crap up on eBay this Summer and simply engage in a bit of a clearout (I WELCOME ANY OFFER I SHIP WORLDWIDE JUST GET THIS SHIT OFF MY HANDS MAN), but I’m still kinda languishing in junk that hasn’t shifted on Amazon for ages. I don’t know where I got so many GameCube and PlayStation controllers, but would you believe I’m having trouble getting rid of them? It saddens me just seeing them sitting around with no one to get good use out of them. Okay, one of them’s got a serious goo problem (the joystick is sticky as shit, it’s like some kinda freaky fungus thing – don’t worry, that one isn’t up for sale!) and there’s the simple matter of, hurf, who wants an old obsolete GameCube controller nowadays, but still. People still hold onto their old consoles nowadays, right? They don’t burn them or anything. If they did that’d be a bit disappointing.
But at least old console accessories still have some market, with people left in the world who can still enjoy them and give them good homes. Does anyone still care for old-as-beans PC components? Because I just unearthed a bunch of old gamepads and flight sticks, and man, those aren’t any good to me. Why on earth do I even have a flight stick, let alone four of the damn things? I’ve never had any flying simulators! Was it just customary for every PC user of the 20th century to have a flight stick handy just in case they ever wanted to simulate some flights?
What truly saddens me about this discovery… is this gamepad.
It is a beautiful gamepad. Can you believe it actually has six face buttons? When was the last time you saw a controller with six face buttons? My first answer would be the SEGA Saturn, but the Xbox had six face buttons (albeit stupidly laid out), and, uh, I guess the realm of USB gamepads is one I am unacquainted with, but they probably have some with six face buttons too. Fact remains that I feel having six buttons is pretty neat and I just love the look and feel of this controller. But, sadly, since my current computer is not old enough to drive, it doesn’t have a game port and thus has no means of this controller connecting anywhere. I am mildly miffed!
Problem is, actually doing anything to fix this doesn’t seem to be very fruitful. There are adaptors that allow you to plug them into USB slots, but none only are some of them frighteningly expensive (and at that price you might as well just seek out a USB pad to begin with) but apparently they’re not terribly responsive regarding what inputs you make. So I was thinking, what would one have to do to actually turn the controller into a USB pad, removing the middleman that is the adaptor? Well, uh, search engines certainly aren’t helpful. Apparently people think the laborious process of plugging in an adaptor is worthy of multi-step tutorials. Yeah, thanks, because I just wouldn’t know what to do otherwise, fellas.
