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Peripherals

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Emmanuel Kasper edited this page Dec 24, 2024 · 19 revisions

What peripherals are supported?

The MIST currently supports:

Currently unsupported are:

  • Original Atari ST and Amiga mice
  • USB bluetooth dongles

Support for these is a matter of firmware support and they may be supported one day.

Power supply

The board is powered via micro USB. The board draws ca. 300mA/5V. 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).

USB keyboards

A USB keyboard to be used with the MiST 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 keyboard. All USB keyboards tested so far support this and work properly on the MIST. Wireless keyboards using a 2.4 Ghz dongle, like the Logitech Wave Keys, will also work. The keyboard part of all wireless keyboard mouse combos tested so far also work (see below Wireless USB keyboard/mouse combos).

USB mice

MiST supports standard USB mice. Most simple mice tested so far work fine. Very few mice have been reported not to work. Also 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. From the embedded systems view (Atari ST / Amiga) only one mouse is connected. E.g. it's currently not possible to play two player dual-mouse games like Lemmings for the Amiga this way.

USB storage devices (thumb drives)

Since firmware 220805 MiST supports USB storage devices (thumb drives).

Since firmware 220821 the boot order between SD and USB can be switched with the on-board buttons.

USB-to-ethernet adaptors

The MiST is able to use certain USB-to-ethernet adaptors based on certain Asix chips (AX88772 family) to connect to an Ethernet. Only a few cores support the Ethernet adaptor, e.g. AtariST.

These USB-to-ethernet adaptors are known to work:

VendorID:ProductID Brand Description
05ac:1402 Apple USB Adapter A1277
2001:3c05 D-Link Corp. DUB-E100 Fast Ethernet Adapter (rev.B1)
2001:1a02 D-Link Corp. DUB-E100 Fast Ethernet Adapter (rev.C1)
0b95:7720 NoName Wii Adapter
0b95:7720 Plugable USB2-E100
0b95:7720 UGREEN CR110 (20253: white, 20254: black)
0b95:772a Asix Fast Ethernet Adapter
0b95:772b NoName Adapter 88772B

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

Bluetooth USB and mice

Bluetooth devices are currently not supported.

Classic C64 style joysticks

Two classic C64/Atari/Amiga style joysticks with standard DB9 connector are fully supported. Two fire buttons are also supported on systems that support this. The joystick ports are provided with up to 100mA each so that auto fire functions and LEDs are supposed to work as expected.

Original Atari and Amiga mice are also working in the Minimig-AGA and MiSTery cores.

Not supported on these ports are light guns, analog paddles, SEGA controllers (anything which requires to switch some pins to output mode).

USB joysticks and gamepads

USB joysticks and gamepads are not trivial to connect. The status reports they send vary from device to device. The MIST firmware supports many of them, but not all. Chances are better with cheap and/or simple devices. You may have to map the buttons in the mist.ini file.

USB controllers known to work

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

Brand Description Image
Buffalo 'Famicom' classic controller image
iBuffalo SNES classic controller image
iNNEXT SNES USB controller image
Retrolink NES gamepad replica (rectangular case)
Retrolink GameCube gamepad replica
Retrolink N64 gamepad replica image
Retrolink Atari2600 joystick replica
Speedlink Competition Pro USB
(unbranded) Cheap SNES gamepad image

The N64 gamepad replica can act as an analog joystick.

Recognized USB joysticks and gamepads

These joystick and gamepads are shown with its names in OSD Input Devices -> Joystick Setup/Test.

Firmware 220629:

VendorID:ProductID Description
0f30:1012 Qanba Q4RAF
081f:e401 SNES Generic Pad
0583:2060 iBuffalo SFC BSGP801
0411:00c6 iBuffalo SFC BSGP801
0079:0006 Retrolink N64/GC
0079:0011 Retrolink NES
1f4f:0003 ROYDS Stick.EX
04d8:f947 2600-daptor II
04d8:f421 NEOGEO-daptor
04d8:f6ec NEOGEO-daptor
04d8:f672 Vision-daptor
1345:1030 Retro Freak gamepad
1235:ab11 8BitDo SFC30
1235:ab21 8BitDo SFC30
1002:9000 8BitDo FC30
040b:6533 Speedlink Competition Pro
0738:2217 Speedlink Competition Pro
045e:028e Xbox360 Controller
1c59:0026 Retro Games THEGAMEPAD

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.

The MIST board also has two such connectors. We call them the "physical joystick ports". Since the mouse is connected via USB to the MIST both physical ports can be used for classic Atari style joysticks.

If you connect a classic Atari joystick to physical port 1 you can play single player games. If you instead connect 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 multi player adaptor.

SD cards

Standard form factor classic SD cards (<= 2GB) as well as SDHC cards (> 2GB) and SDXC cards (> 32GB) are supported. The use of a 1GB card of a well-known brand is recommended.

The card has to be FAT or exFAT formatted. exFAT is required if you want to use big (>4GiB) hardfiles. Otherwise FAT32 is good option. If in doubt use a windows PC or even better a device like a digital camera to format the card.

The card must have a valid MS-DOS style partition table (even with exFAT). GPT is not supported! But the MS-DOS table's limit is 2TiB, so it's more than adequate.

Reports of working SD cards on Atari-Forum here and here.

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.

For further information read e.g. the video section in HowTheAtariStCoreWorks.

Speakers

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

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