Programmable Genesis Controller?

[icbrkr]

I got my sister-in-law's boyfriend a Genesis for Christmas this year, and he was looking for something he used to have - it was some sort of periphrial that hooked up between the controller and the Genesis that allowed you to program buttons. Ideas on what he could be looking for?

[Alex Kidd]

It was this thing that looked kinda like a cable box I believe...
Had an adjustable turbo fire I believe in addition to being able to program in macros.
It was called the tiger paw, or panther claw... or something along those lines...

I remember the ad for it in magazines had all these screenshots of X-Men for the genesis and how this would make it so much easier... but I could never get how programmable buttons would be handy for ANY game but one with button taps or d-pad motions ala fighting games and a few beat-em-ups that used those kinda special moves...

As well, unless this person wants the old one for nostalgic reasons I'd reccomend just finding a controller with autofire and programmable buttons built right on to it.

Alex Kidd

[Jive3D]

The only thing that this reminds me of is a controller called the PROGRAM PAD. It was pretty cool. There was one for each of the current systems (Super NES & Genesis, no offence TG-16 Fans). The Genesis one was called the SG-Program Pad. You could program each of the 3 extra buttons to inoput a button combonation, like say, press the one button and the controller would enter the Konami code for you. It was kinda useful, meant to do easy combos and shit with Street Fighter II, but it never really felt right to me. I mainly used it to input that near-impossible Sonic the Hedgehog 3 code. I sold mine on eBay, but I wouild look there...

Though they are pretty hard to come by these days as not many people respect 3rd party stuff, especially when it comes to retro-gaming.

[metal_head]

I had a Snes program pad, and I've currently got the Snes programmable stick, but I do recall seeing ads in the US mags for an interface box...not only gave you progammable commands, but also had the ability to give your digital pad analogue capability, or proportional steering as I think the ad called it.

I'm sure one of its modes was called "thrash mode".

[Bratwurst]

What the guy is looking for is called the Power Plug by Tyco. Gives any controller turbo, slow motion.. a steering mode so the D-pad is more sensitive for racing games. Has a bunch of moves programmed for several fighting games like Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, the popular stuff..

I haven't tried mine yet but I'm going to see one of these days if you can save the moves you program yourself after the game is cut off.. it would be cool to have the level select code for Sonic 3 dedicated to the 'Z' button for example.

edit: bada bing

http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/peripherals/images/powerplug.jpg

[LazingBlazers]

The only thing that this reminds me of is a controller called the PROGRAM PAD...

Yeah, and the kicker is that they were made by STD. STD!!! Man, that still cracks me up to this day.