Wiring – No Soldering Required

It is possible to solder jumper wires onto each wire of the extension cable like some other platforms, but since the we are dealing with a standard port type, we can build a cable with no soldering required.

1. Take the extension cable, wires, Breakout Board and Y cable you have acquired and put them together in this configuration:

Wiring – Soldering Required

This is the most time consuming piece, especially if you have never done any wiring/soldering before.

1. First you will need to cut your controller extension cable so you can splice into the wires (consider which spot in the extension cable to cut, game system side, controller side, middle)

2. Use your exacto knife or box cutters to very carefully cut away and peel back the plastic covering on both halves, about 2-3 inches should be good enough.
3. Use wire strippers to strip back about 1/2 an inch of the plastic covering on each wire. In my case I had to carefully use my exacto knife because the wires were too small for the stripper, I rotated the wire against the blade until I could pull the plastic off the end.

4. Next you will need to use a digital multimeter or continuity tester to figure out which pin on your controller plugin goes to which wire in the extension cable, make sure to write down your findings. Do NOT trust the color of the wires, the colors will vary from cable to cable.
5. If you are just using the cable for Atari-style controllers you need to splice every pin, but 7.  However if you want to use this cable for other DB9-based consoles you will want to splice all 9 pins.
6. Figure out the length you need between your controller extension cable/Arduino and cut and strip a wire for each wire you are going to splice into.
7. Solder each wire back together with your spliced wires, here’s what mine looked like when finished I soldered them this way (instead of end-to-end) because this will provide more strain relief against the small controller extension wires possibly breaking with use.

8. After soldering everything back together, test out your extension cable with your game system to see that it still works before proceeding.
9. Use electrical tape to tape up each wire separately.

10. Again use electrical tape to tape all the wires back together, make sure to tape all the way back up to where the extension cable covering starts.

Hooking it up

1. Download and install the latest release of RetroSpy.
2. Install the latest Arduino software, download the Windows Installer option.  If you are not programming your own board you can skip this step.
3. Hook up the RetroSpy cable to your Arduino according to this pinout.

   DB9 Pin	Arduino Digital Pin (Atari/SMS/Commodore)	Arduino Digital Pin (Odyssey2)	Arduino Digital Pin (GX4000)
   1	2	GND	2
   2	3	7	3
   3	4	4	4
   4	5	3	5
   5	6	5	Not Connected
   6	7	2	7
   7	Not Connected	Not Connected	8
   8	GND	Not Connected	GND
   9	8	Not Connected	Not Connected

4. Plug the controller into the RetroSpy cable.
5. Plug the RetroSpy cable into the DB9 port on the console.
6. Plug the USB cable into the Arduino.
7. Plug the other end of the USB cable into the display PC.

Program the Arduino

If you purchased a pre-programmed board, skip this section and continue to the RetroSpy application setup.

1. Install the Arduino IDE and connect the Arduino to the computer.
2. Open firmware/firmware.ino from the latest RetroSpy release.
3. In the firmware options, enable MODE_BOOSTER_GRIP. Leave only the mode required by this guide enabled.
4. Select the correct board and serial port in the Arduino IDE.
5. Choose Upload. Wait for the IDE to report that the upload completed successfully.

Use the RetroSpy application

1. Connect the programmed board and power on the console or controller adapter.
2. Launch the RetroSpy desktop application from the latest release.
3. Select the serial port used by the board.
4. Select Atari Omega Race Booster Grip on Arduino Getting Started and choose a skin.
5. Choose Go, then press controller buttons to confirm that the display responds.

Troubleshooting

No serial port appears

Reconnect the USB cable, try a data-capable cable or another USB port, and restart the application.

The display opens but inputs are wrong

Confirm the selected controller type, firmware mode, and every pin connection.

The controller stops working on the console

Disconnect the RetroSpy board and retest the extension cable. Look for a short, reversed connector, or damaged splice.

Still stuck?

Contact RetroSpy support and include the console, controller, board type, firmware mode, and a clear wiring photo.