Peripherals

What peripherals are supported?

The SiDi board currently supports:

• Power supply 5V
• USB keyboards
• USB mouse
• DB9 Atari joysticks (only for MiSTica)
• Micro SD card
• VGA screen or TV with SCART / Component input
• Speakers
• USB joysticks/gamepads
• MIDI addons
• Wifi addons
• Audio sources connected to audio input (e.g. real tape players, Arduino, etc. depending on the core)

Power supply

The board is powered via micro USB or barrel plug. The board draws ca. 300mA/5V but additional power is required for attached peripherals. A total of 400mA is sufficient, the board can thus easily be powered from any PC USB port (providing 500mA) or standard USB phone charger (providing 1200mA). It is recommended 1A PSU minimum.

USB keyboards

A USB keyboard needs to support the so-called "USB HID Boot mode" (this is a simplified mode of communication with the keyboard mainly intended to be used when controlling the BIOS of a PC via USB). All USB keyboards tested so far support this and work properly on SiDi, this includes the keyboard part of all wireless keyboard & mouse combos tested so far.

USB mouse

Standard USB mice are supported. Most simple mice tested so far work fine and very few mice have been reported not to work. Sometimes the mouse part in some wireless keyboard & mouse combos doesn't work properly. If in doubt, use a simple wheel mouse of a well-known brand.

Only one mouse is presented to the system: if more than one mouse is connected, they all drive the system mouse and from the embedded systems view (Atari ST / Amiga etc.) only one mouse is connected (so it's currently not possible to play two players dual-mouse games, like Lemmings or The Settlers for the Amiga, this way).

Wireless USB keyboard & mouse combos

Most "combo" devices also work. A device know to work well is the Logitech K400. The touchpad of a Rii mini wireless also works.

These wireless combo devices are known to work:

Brand	Description	Image
Logitech	K400 and K400r	image
Rapoo	E2000P and 8000	image

Classic joysticks (only for SiDi128)

Port A is a Genesis / Megadrive 6 button compatible pinout. Port B is a Genesis/Amiga mode selectable compatible pinout (support Atari/Amiga 9pin mouse).

USB joysticks and gamepads

USB joysticks and gamepads are not trivial to connect: the status reports they send vary from device to device. The SiDi firmware supports many of them, but not all. Chances are better with cheap and/or simple devices.

USB controllers known to work

This list is not exhaustive, but should give you an idea of which controllers work:

Brand	Description	Image
iBuffalo	'SNES' classic controller	image
iBuffalo	'Famicom' classic controller	image
Retro-bit	'SEGA Saturn' control pad	image
Retroflag	'Classic SNES USB Controller-U'
Retrolink	'NES' gamepad replica (rectangular case)
Retrolink	'GameCube' gamepad replica
Retrolink	'N64' gamepad replica*	image
Retrolink	'Atari2600' joystick replica
SEGA	'Astro City' arcade stick	image
Speedlink	Competition Pro USB
(unbranded)	cheap SNES gamepad	image

*The N64 gamepad replica can act as an analog joystick.

USB vs. Atari style joysticks using more than two joysticks

A real Atari ST has two Atari style joystick ports. Port 0 is used for the mouse and port 1 is used for the joystick. If two joysticks are required the user has to unplug the mouse and use a second joystick in port 0.

If you connect a classic Atari joystick to physical port 1 you can play single-player games. If you connect instead a USB joystick you can also play single-player games.

If you connect two USB joysticks, or one USB joystick and one classic Atari joystick to physical port 1, you can play two-player games. The USB joystick will then become the "primary" joystick.

If you plug more than two joysticks the additional ones behave like they were connected via a "Gauntlet II" compatible multiplayer adaptor.

SD cards

Mini SD cards (<=2GB) as well as SDHC cards (>2GB) are supported. The use of a 1GB card of a well-known brand is recommended.

The card has to be FAT or exFAT formatted. If in doubt use a Windows PC or even better a device like a digital camera to format the card. SD cards >32GB can be used with FAT32 or exFAT file system, formatted with utilities like SD Memory Card Formatter or similar.

VGA screens

The video timing on the VGA output depends on the core being used (Atari ST / Amiga / whatever) and the compatibility varies from core to core and from screen to screen. Some of the classic TV video modes (e.g. the Atari ST color video modes) use a screen refresh rate that's outside the VGA standard although many screens can display it, anyway.

Speakers

Any type of active PC speakers with built-in amplifier should be fine.