Building a Commodore 64 - Part V - (Controllers)

Having a near authentic Commodore 64 means that you now have good old 9 pin joystick connectors as your only option for controllers... or is it?

Compatibility

So if you have any old 9 pin joystick it will work in a C64, right? WRONG!

Sega (Master System & Megadrive) have a completely different pinout and can even cause damage as the 5V line is switched to different pins. To understand how crazy the layouts are check this page.

Your safest bet is to stick to Commodore or Atari joysticks.

Adapters

There are a number of adapters out there on the market that will allow you to connect Sega controllers to a C64 and safely switch around the pins.

I have used the adapter below, and recommended it! It also allows you to map extra buttons to functions such as "up" which gives games on C64 a more modern control set.

Old school

If you want authenticity then you need to go old school. No one makes new 9 pin C64 joysticks any more so again you have to resort to the second hand market. There were some really terrible joysticks back in the day which you really should just avoid.

C-1311 - AVOID!!! C-1311

On the other hand there were a quite a few quality joysticks made that are quite good, notably Competition Pros and ZipStiks. These are solid and use microswitches. Grab one of these for the authentic gameplay. I prefer the ZipStik, I even have one in pink!

ZipStik ZipStik

Competition Pro Competition Pro

My mate swears by the Konix Navigator, it's a great joystick with microswitches like the ones above, but I never got used to it.

Konix Navigator Konix Navigator

Modern alternatives

Luckily nowadays in the golden age of retro computing revival we have many more choices. I couldn't even begin to cover the huge amount of choices that have been created by the Commodore community so I will stick to a couple I use.

So the holy grail is to connect wireless modern controllers to the C64 DB9 joystick port. 8BitDo in the last few years have come to the rescue and built a massive range of controllers and adapters that can be used.

Wireless adapters

My favourite is to use their Retro Receiver for Sega Megadrive with the Sega to Commodore adapter above. This gives you the ability to then connect any 8BitDo controller you want.

Retro Receiver connected to Sega to Commodore adapter

Another good option is the Nunchuk64, in combination with the 8BitDo Retro Receiver for NES/SNES/SFC Classic Edition. This gives even more functionality that the Sega adapter above, but I prefer the simplicity of it. Check out Nunchuk64 on GitHub for all the features

Wireless Controllers

You can use practically any 8BitDo controller but the ones below are my favourites.

8BitDo Lite

Looks a bit strange but has a very nice feel in the hand. A nice all round choice for any game.

8BitDo N30 Bluetooth® controller for Switch Online

I actually bought the N30 by mistake, but it turned out to be great for the Commodore 64. The top black buttons are "turbo" for autofire functionality, and the bottom red buttons are regular fire buttons. When used with the Sega to Commodore adapter, left buttons are fire and the right buttons are "up", so it's almost the prefect controller.

8BitDo M30

This is 8BitDo's interpretation of the original MegaDrive controller. This is a great controller, and a must use when playing Sonic the Hedgehog for the C64.

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