How to Modify Your Controllers

 

To modify your controllers, you will simply cut the cable near the connector and make a few basic connections. To do this, you will need some way to test which wire is which. You can use a multitester, an ohmmeter, or a battery and a flashlight bulb if you're feeling dramatic. It doesn't have to be complicated, you just need to be able to test a circuit. 

The first step is the most traumatizing: Cut your game cable about 4 - 6 inches from the connector. Now you need to figure out which wires correspond to which pins. This is where you will use your circuit-testing device, be it a multitester, light bulb and battery, eastern mysticism, or a collection of lucky guesses. On the severed connector tail, strip each of the wires so that they are exposed and not touching the other wires (Don't strip them too far down if you plan on using the controller with your console again. Details for modifying the tail are below). Using a probe or a piece of wire, stick it into the connector end making sure it's touching the conductor inside. Then test each wire until you find the one that completes the circuit. There's a 99.9% chance each wire will be a different color so I suggest printing this page and writing the color of the wire in the box below. It will make things a lot easier as you do this if you work out a chart. 

SNES pins NES pins

Signal NES Pin SNES Pin Color
Clock 6 2  
Latch 5 3  
Data 4 4  
Power 1 1  
Ground 7 7  

Now that you know which wires you want to use, strip them down on the part of the cable which is still attached to the joystick. Using the following chart, attach the wires to a male 9-pin connector. If you wrote down the color above, just write the color of each signal wire in below and that will tell you which pin to connect the wire to. 

 
Signal Color 9-pin Connection
Clock   4
Latch   3
Data   2
Power   6
Ground   8

After you've connected each necessary wire to the connector, just put on a standard hood / case for the 9-pin connector and that's all there is to it! Your controller is ready to enter the brave new world of PC gaming or MAME-ing or whatever floats your boat. If you still use your old console system, keep reading to find out how to convert the tail end to let you still use your controller with your NES / SNES. 

As a helpful reference, here is a list of controllers and the wire colors I have found. *READ THIS!!* Every manufacturer uses different color arrangements! If you have a controller that is not listed, DO NOT ASSUME THE COLORS ARE THE SAME! PLEASE check which color goes to which pin before asking me to help you. Also, if your controller is not listed, then I don't know what it's wiring is like so please don't bother asking. Thank you for respecting my time. : )

 
Original NES Controller
Wire  NES Pin JUMP Pin
white 1 6
yellow 4 2
orange 5 3
red 6 4
brown 7 8
Original SNES Controller
Wire  SNES Pin JUMP Pin
white 1 6
yellow 2 4
orange 3 3
red 4 2
brown 7 8
SNES Fighter Pad
Wire  SNES Pin JUMP Pin
white 1 6
yellow 2 4
orange 3 3
red 4 2
brown 7 8
Interact Super Pad
Wire  SNES Pin JUMP Pin
white 1 6
yellow 2 4
orange 3 3
red 4 2
brown 7 8
"Super 16-bit"
Wire  SNES Pin JUMP Pin
white 1 6
blue 2 4
yellow 3 3
red 4 2
brown 7 8
Nuby SNES Extension Cables
Wire  SNES Pin JUMP Pin
brown 1 6
red 2 4
orange 3 3
yellow 4 2
green 5  
blue 6  
white 7 8

 

Converting the Connector

If you still want to use the controller with your console, just attach a female 9-pin connector to portion of the cable that connects to the gaming system. Since it is a standard connection, you'll only need to build two interfaces (or possibly four if you have a multi-tap and want to use four modified controllers at once) regardless of how many different controllers you modify.  To build the adapter, the easiest way is to use the chart you filled in above that maps the wire colors to the JUMP pins but instead of a male 9-pin connector, use a female 9-pin connector so the connector will plug into it. 

 

Visual Aids


And of course, here are some pictures of what the final products will look like.

This is a standard gamepad with the JUMP connector attached to the end.

 

This is the tail end of a SNES joystick which has been converted to accept a JUMP joystick. In other words, if you plug this little guy into your Super Nintendo controller port, you can use any Super Nintendo controller which you have converted to use with a JUMP interface. So even if you modify 20 different SNES joysticks, you will only need to adapt two of these to use any of those joysticks you want. 

 

This is another Super Nintendo joystick with the aforementioned adapter tail attached. This cable is about 6 feet long but if you wanted a longer cable, all you would have to do is buy an inexpensive 9-pin extension cord as long as you wanted it.