[rasz]

>MIDI-based API that some later joysticks had

Which ones did that? Afaik the "digital" protocol joysticks bit-banged serial communication using standard gameport pins.

[livrem]

I do not remember which models I read about that did that and never owned a gameport joystick/gamepad with extra buttons. MIDI was (de-facto) standard gameport pins and using the UART wired to the MIDI input pin was probably more convenient than to read serial signals from the buttons but I do not know how common it was to use that pin instead of the button pins.

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/24946/how...

[rasz]

In that thread ssokolow links reverse engineering for gravis https://github.com/prosper00/GRiP-duino and sidewinder https://github.com/MaZderMind/SidewinderInterface, both are bitbanging joystick button pins. You couldnt ship joystick relying on MIDI as people still had plain gmeport cards, not to mention some sound cards didnt support MIDI.

[livrem]

The sidewinder used MIDI for force feedback though, for models that had that: https://web.archive.org/web/20151220120836mp_/https://code.g...

Found this page that has a list of some 10 different protocols for sending digital signals from joysticks to a gameport: https://dosdays.co.uk/topics/joysticks.php Other than the sidewinder and GriP protocols I have not managed to find any specs for the other protocols. I clearly think I remember from back in the day that using MIDI for extra buttons was a thing so it may be one of those other protocols did, or it could be that I am just wrong.

[rasz]

Even FF is crazy, would that force a choice between FF and GM wavetable for example?