Wolfmans Howlings

A programmers Blog about Programming solutions and a few other issues

Converting a Sidewinder 3D pro joystick to USB

Posted by Jim Morris on Sat Oct 24 14:50:02 -0700 2009

In playing with my new Rovio I decided that my Old MS Sidewinder 3D Pro Joystick would be an excellent way to control it, as it has the twist which can rotate the Rovio, and the joystick up/left/down/right can move the Rovio in those directions while still facing forward.

The problem is that the joystick has a game port connector, and my Linux workstation does not have a game-port. After doing the obligatory Googling I found this Exactly what I needed, except this was for Windows not Linux. Thinking I would have to modify the code I contacted Grendel who graciously sent me the source code for the project, however it turns out the code he wrote was so good it works as is on Linux, I just needed to modprobe sidewinder and it worked.

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Posted in Linux,Embedded,Robotics  |  Tags joystick,usb,soldering  |  1 comments