I’ve been looking for some use to put my 1st gen Raspberry Pi to for some time and Shea Silverman’s work on getting a Neo Geo emulator up and running on the Pi seemed to be almost the perfect answer.

Almost.

Playing classics such as Soccer Brawl (possibly the first game I played on the AES) with a keyboard is OK but lets knock this up a notch; enter the Neo Geo X Arcade Stick (disclaimer: this link takes you to the purchase page for the Arcade Stick but I get no referral fees or payment).
The new Neo Geo X Arcade Stick claims to be a 1:1 replica of the original with genuine arcade parts all tied together neatly with a USB connector.  What better way to recreate the arcade experience at home?

The Arcade Stick is automatically recognised as a joystick by the Raspberry Pi and if you’ve followed Shea’s instructions you already have a config file with joystick support enabled (top tip for the installation; if the ~/.gngeo folder doesn’t get created automatically you probably don’t have the right bios or rom set, the folder is only created after a successful launch).
If you have rolled your own config you need to ensure joystick support is enabled:

# enable joystick support ?
joystick true

There’s only one thing left to do which is update the config file with a joystick mapping, unfortunately the 2 sample configs aren’t a 1:1 match with the Arcade Stick layout so we’ll have to write our own.  One thing to note is the Arcade Stick buttons C & D are presented out of order and need to be swapped accordingly in the config file.

# NeoGeoX
p1control A=J0B0,B=J0B1,C=J0B3,D=J0B2,START=J0B9,COIN=J0B8,UP=J0a1,DOWN=J0a1,LEFT=J0A0,RIGHT=J0A0

Add the config under the existing Xbox 360 and Dualshock2 samples, save the file and you’re good to go.
Add Coin is mapped to Select so once you’ve loaded the emu you can select menu items with B (A is cancel), hit Select to insert a coin and relive the days when you would look on with wonder at what is possibly the most expensive gaming system to date.

If you’re a PC gamer wondering if the Neo Geo X Arcade Stick works on your platform of choice I can confirm that I have had it successfully running with FBA with only the joystick mapping needing to be changed.  But lets face it, running Neo Geo games on a £500+ PC isn’t as cool as running it on one that costs £35.

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