Name: Dynapoint GameStar: 1993 NES to PC Keyboard Adapter
Uploaded: 2020-03-06T17:24:15.000Z
Duration: 15 min 36 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing! And today's thing requires just a little

bit of context. So a couple months ago an LGR viewer named Daniel came across

Basic passive voice

this little box and couldn't find much information about it, but was intrigued

since it seemed to have both an NES controller and an AT-style keyboard

connector on it. So he said he'd send it my way if I wanted to check it out. I did,

so he did, and I got it, and I was stumped as well! Other than the Game Star logo,

a serial number, and some FCC ID information on the back there's not much

to go on. But then after a bit of research I found out that it was

manufactured in Taiwan on behalf of Jow Dian Enterprise Company Limited. Apparently

they made all sorts of input devices, or at least they registered a bunch of them.

But more importantly I found out that this is only one piece of an obscure

retro product puzzle, and this is how it all comes together: say hello to the

Dynapoint Game Star, the so-called "programmable game controller" from 1993.

And it is indeed an adapter that allows for Nintendo Entertainment System

controllers to be used over an IBM PC AT-compatible keyboard port. But it also

came with its own NES-compatible game controller, which is where they decided

to stick the branding, hence why the adapter box is so short on information

I suppose. Not only that but it also comes with its own software to program the

Game Star box itself and make use of those buttons on the front, so I'm glad I

was able to track down the whole package here because I wasn't able to find a

single archive of the software online. And all this marketing copy on the back

of the box is just precious: "the sophistication of PC games demand better

game controllers. Which explains why you will appreciate how GameStar™ puts your

game button directly at your fingertips." Yep, that totally explains it loud and

clear. I also like how this sticker proudly proclaims how the product was

assembled in the USA right above the fine print that says it was actually

made in Taiwan. Not that this is uncommon or anything, but the practice of saying

something is made in the USA even though it was only the final place of assembly

always struck me as a bit pointless. So yeah now that I have

the complete package about the only question that remains is how much this

cost back in 1993? And I have no idea. I'm sure

it's something I could find if I dig through enough physical magazine

archives but it's probably not worth my time. So on the off chance anyone already

knows how much it cost in '93 do leave me a comment since I'm curious! All right

let's go ahead and get this opened up and see what you get inside. First up are the

controller and the adapter itself, the latter of which I already had but it's

nice to have another one just in case something's wrong with one of them. Oddly

enough this one that's supposedly brand new has this kind of gold/bronze

discoloration on part of it, almost like paint overspray of some kind. It's not

the other one so who knows what that is. Anyway you get the three buttons on top

here for programming keyboard commands, then the NES controller and AT keyboard

passthrough on the back. Then there's the Dynapoint controller itself, which,

despite its six buttons is just an NES-compatible gamepad. And it seems the

model number is DYJP-0001. And looking online I see that finding this

controller without the adapter is pretty commonplace so it makes sense there's so

little information about this kit. And as far as how it feels,

yeah well, it feels like a cheap third party controller alright.

Lightweight, plastic-y, although somewhat economic since it has some girth and

cutouts for your fingers to sit in around back. But man that d-pad is

absolutely one of the worst I've ever had the displeasure of placing my thumb

on. And those buttons aren't much better. It's also kind of a weird layout with

the start and select buttons right above A and B. Although it's kind of nice that

it has turbo buttons for A and B off to the right as well, but again they're in

an unconventional almost vertical layout. Who knows though, maybe it'll surprise me

when I actually use it. You also get a high-density 5.25 inch

floppy disk containing the utility software, and I sure do hope this works

because it's literally the only copy I've come across, physically or otherwise.

And sadly it doesn't seem to have come with the promised shareware version of

Wolfenstein 3D, unless it's on the utility disk as well which that's

possible since the 1.0 shareware release of Wolf3d is only 650 kilobytes when

compressed. And finally you get the 12 page user's

guide which is a bit more than you might normally get with an NES controller or

even an adapter for one. But it makes sense I mean, most of this is taken up

with information on how to program the device using the game star software for

MS-DOS. And once again I enjoy the product descriptions on the part of

Dynapoint here: "Thank you for purchasing GameStar, the programmable

game controller for *the* PCs. This revolutionary new product is designed to

provide *serious* game players with *enhanced* response for joysticks and

other input devices!" All bold claims but as a serious player of 'the PCs' I am

prepared for the enhanced response. Oh and hey I didn't notice this little

doohickey earlier. Turns out that it comes with a little plastic joystick nub

that you just shove into the d-pad's hole. Hmm I'm not sure if that's any better or

worse but I suppose we'll see soon enough. So yeah at this point we're ready

to get it running, all you gotta do is plug in your five pin AT keyboard's DIN

connector, or a PS/2 keyboard with the appropriate adapter. Then plug in the

Game Star's keyboard cable into your PC and then plug in the controller to the

ready to go, hopefully. Got the disk in the drive let's see if it works,

fingers crossed. That's a good sign, and yep! And right away I see that Wolfenstein 3D

folder, so that answers that question: it does come with the shareware version of

Wolfenstein on the disk. "Install to C" oh good awesome.

"Utilities have been successfully installed. Your Game Star disk comes with

id Software's Wolfenstein 3D Episode 1." Yeah go ahead and install that too,

though I think I have it already on here, but uh [typing, beeping] Can't go wrong with another copy of

Wolfenstein. Alright that's good but let's go ahead and check out this Game

Star directory and see what we get here. So here's the program, interesting how

this looks closer to like, the dog bone controller of the NES. I wonder if that

was the design they were gonna go with at first. "The mapping can be done by

first click on a joystick button then on a key switch button, repeat the process

for all buttons." So it's click and click again. And then we can assign them, it

looks like those are assigned the arrow keys right

now. The A button is assigned to five on the numpad the B is on space. And then

those are the turbo buttons. And then we have down and enter. Seems like select

should maybe be escape, there we go. Yeah enter makes sense. And I'm gonna

change it to Ctrl and Alt for A and B. So it automatically switched

the turbo buttons. And it looks like I can change the turbo speed over here as

well. And there we go we have platform.joy and I guess we're done! So "download

the current mapping," okay. "Press the GameStar load button." That'd be this. I guess

that was it? Yeah well I'm not gonna try Wolf3D right now, what I want to do is Jill

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