Commodore 64 joystick adapters are hardware peripherals

Commodore 64 peripherals

This article is about the various external peripherals of the Commodore 64 home computer.-Tape drives:In the United States, the 1541 floppy disk drive was widespread. By contrast, in Europe the C64 was often used with cassette tape drives , which were much cheaper, but also much slower than floppy...

 that extend the number of joystick ports on the Commodore 64

Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

 computer. The additional joysticks can be used on games with dedicated support for the specific adapter.

A few different joystick adapters have been constructed for use with the C64. The Classical Games / Protovision adapter is supported by the largest number of games. It is also the only adapter presently available commercially, but building instructions are available for most of the adapters. Some of the adapters are also emulated in C64 emulators.

Starbyte adapter (1990)

Supports 2 additional joysticks. Released by Starbyte Software in 1990 for use with their game Adidas Championship Tie Break. At the time sold separately under the name Tie Break Adaptor.

Kingsoft adapter (1992)

Supports 2 additional joysticks at the userport. Introduced with the game Bug Bomber by Kingsoft in 1992, but might be compatible with (or identical to) the Starbyte adapter. The game came with instructions to build your own 4-player adapter.

Building instructions (plugs, wires and diodes) are also available on the web.

Classical Games adapter (1997) / Protovision 4 player interface

Supports 2 additional joysticks at the userport. Developed by Chester Kollschen (CKX) of Classical Games and released in 1997 with the game Bomb Mania. Kollschen later joined Protovision and the adapter is now available as the Protovision 4 player interface.

Building instructions (plugs, wires and an IC), sample code, shop and list of supported games are available at the Protovision website.

O. Stillers adapter

Supports 8 joysticks (at the expansion port). Developed by Oliver Stiller. Building instructions and documentation probably appeared in a 64'er mag.

L. Pantarottos adapter (1998)

Supports 8 joysticks, all connected to the user port and one joyport. Appears with the game Space Balls (1998) for 2-8 players by Luigi Pantarotto. (No claim of originality, so this could also be a reuse of another adapter.)

Building instructions (plugs and wires only) is provided with the game SpaceBalls.

Ninjas SNES pad adapter (1998)

Supports 8 SNES pads at the joyports. Developed by Ninja of The Dreams. Only a few games are available for this adapter.

Building instructions (plugs and wires only) are available at the Hitmen 4 player adapter website. Code interface is demonstrated in the SNES-Pad-Tooldisk #1.

Digital Excess & Hitmen 4 player joystick adapter (1999)

Supports 2 additional joysticks at the userport. Developed by Groepaz of Hitmen and Thomas Koncina and Bjoern Odendahl of Digital Excess in 1999 as an easier to build alternative to the Classical Games adapter. A few 4-player games are available for this adapter.

Building instructions (plugs and wires only) and sample code is available at the Hitmen 4 player adapter website.

Related

Adapters for a few related computers can also be used with the C64.Those adapters include PET (normally only used on the PET/CBM2), Hummer (normally only used on the C64DTV) and OEM (normally only used on the VIC20). There are probably no game supporting those adapters on the C64.

Emulation

The C64 emulator VICE

VICE

The software program VICE, standing for VersatIle Commodore Emulator, is an emulator for Commodore's 8-bit computers, running on Amiga, Unix, MS-DOS, Win32, Mac OS X, OS/2, Acorn RISC OS, and BeOS host machines...

supports the Classical Games / Protovision and the Digital Excess & Hitmen adapters from version 2.3.

Games

List of games with original or added support for the various adapters.

Title	Year	Description	# Joystics	Adapter	Interfaced by
Alone in the Green	2009	original	1-4	C	Edikles
Amazing Maze	2005	Amazing Maze (1983) hack	1-3	C	Triad
Bomb Mania	1997	Bomberman clone	2-4	C	Protovision
Bomb Mania patch	1998	Bomb Mania (1997) patch	2-4	C, N	Da!NyL
Bomb Mania patch	1999	Bomb Mania (1997) patch	2-4	C, D	DXS & HIT
Bug Bomber	1992	Bomberman clone	1-4	K	Kingsoft
Garrison	2007	Gauntlet (1986) hack	1-4	C, D	Nostalgia
Grubz (preview)	2004	Worms clone	2-4	C	Singular Crew
Hockey Mania	2004	original	2-4	C	Protovision
International Karate + Gold	2001	International Karate + (1987) hack	1-3	C, D, N	The Dreams
Marble Madness+	2004	Marble Madness (1986) hack	1-4	C	Nostalgia
Pac It (preview)	2000	Pacman clone	1-4	C	Protovision
Phong	2004	Pong clone	1-4	C, N	Instinct/Triad
Quadris	1998	Tetris clone	1-4	C	Protovision
Quadtron	2000	Snakes clone	2-4	C	Protovision
Rampage Gold	2003	Rampage (1987) hack	1-3	C, D, N	The Dreams
Snakes 4 Snakes	2002	Snakes clone	2-4	C	Protovision
Space Balls	1998	original	2-8	P	Pantarotto
Square Attack	2011	original	4	C	Prof. Pi^2
Super Off Road+	2007	Super Off Road (1990) hack	1-3	C, D	Nostalgia
Tanks 3000	2006	original	2-4	C	Protovision
Team Patrol	2005	original	2-4	C	Protovision
Tie Break	1990	original	1-4	S	Starbyte
Tour de France	2005	original	2-4	C	Hack n' Trade

Adapter:
S = Starbyte, C = Classical Games / Protovision, D = Digital Excess & Hitmen, N = Ninjas SNES pad, K = Kingsoft, P = Pantarotto, O = O. Stiller.

Description:
original/clone = new implementation, patch = patch for existing game, hack = unautorized release based on existing game.

Interface origin:
Publisher or official source of joystick adapter support. In order to use hacked versions legally, you should own the original game.

External links

• Protovision 4 player interface page, shop and list of compatible games
• Hitmen building instruction on 4 player adapters and list of 4 player games