bit of context. So a couple months ago an LGR viewer named Daniel came across

this little box and couldn't find much information about it, but was intrigued

since it seemed to have both an NES controller and an AT-style keyboard

connector on it. So he said he'd send it my way if I wanted to check it out. I did,

so he did, and I got it, and I was stumped as well! Other than the Game Star logo,

a serial number, and some FCC ID information on the back there's not much

to go on. But then after a bit of research I found out that it was

manufactured in Taiwan on behalf of Jow Dian Enterprise Company Limited. Apparently

they made all sorts of input devices, or at least they registered a bunch of them.

But more importantly I found out that this is only one piece of an obscure

retro product puzzle, and this is how it all comes together: say hello to the

Dynapoint Game Star, the so-called "programmable game controller" from 1993.

And it is indeed an adapter that allows for Nintendo Entertainment System

controllers to be used over an IBM PC AT-compatible keyboard port. But it also

came with its own NES-compatible game controller, which is where they decided

to stick the branding, hence why the adapter box is so short on information

I suppose. Not only that but it also comes with its own software to program the

Game Star box itself and make use of those buttons on the front, so I'm glad I

was able to track down the whole package here because I wasn't able to find a

single archive of the software online. And all this marketing copy on the back

of the box is just precious: "the sophistication of PC games demand better

game controllers. Which explains why you will appreciate how GameStar™ puts your

game button directly at your fingertips." Yep, that totally explains it loud and

clear. I also like how this sticker proudly proclaims how the product was

assembled in the USA right above the fine print that says it was actually

made in Taiwan. Not that this is uncommon or anything, but the practice of saying

something is made in the USA even though it was only the final place of assembly

always struck me as a bit pointless. So yeah now that I have

the complete package about the only question that remains is how much this

cost back in 1993? And I have no idea. I'm sure

it's something I could find if I dig through enough physical magazine

archives but it's probably not worth my time. So on the off chance anyone already

knows how much it cost in '93 do leave me a comment since I'm curious! All right

let's go ahead and get this opened up and see what you get inside. First up are the

controller and the adapter itself, the latter of which I already had but it's

nice to have another one just in case something's wrong with one of them. Oddly

enough this one that's supposedly brand new has this kind of gold/bronze

discoloration on part of it, almost like paint overspray of some kind. It's not

the other one so who knows what that is. Anyway you get the three buttons on top

here for programming keyboard commands, then the NES controller and AT keyboard

passthrough on the back. Then there's the Dynapoint controller itself, which,

despite its six buttons is just an NES-compatible gamepad. And it seems the

model number is DYJP-0001. And looking online I see that finding this

controller without the adapter is pretty commonplace so it makes sense there's so

little information about this kit. And as far as how it feels,

yeah well, it feels like a cheap third party controller alright.

Lightweight, plastic-y, although somewhat economic since it has some girth and

cutouts for your fingers to sit in around back. But man that d-pad is

absolutely one of the worst I've ever had the displeasure of placing my thumb

on. And those buttons aren't much better. It's also kind of a weird layout with

the start and select buttons right above A and B. Although it's kind of nice that

it has turbo buttons for A and B off to the right as well, but again they're in

an unconventional almost vertical layout. Who knows though, maybe it'll surprise me

when I actually use it. You also get a high-density 5.25 inch

floppy disk containing the utility software, and I sure do hope this works

because it's literally the only copy I've come across, physically or otherwise.

And sadly it doesn't seem to have come with the promised shareware version of

Wolfenstein 3D, unless it's on the utility disk as well which that's

possible since the 1.0 shareware release of Wolf3d is only 650 kilobytes when

compressed. And finally you get the 12 page user's

guide which is a bit more than you might normally get with an NES controller or

even an adapter for one. But it makes sense I mean, most of this is taken up

with information on how to program the device using the game star software for

MS-DOS. And once again I enjoy the product descriptions on the part of

Dynapoint here: "Thank you for purchasing GameStar, the programmable

game controller for *the* PCs. This revolutionary new product is designed to

provide *serious* game players with *enhanced* response for joysticks and

other input devices!" All bold claims but as a serious player of 'the PCs' I am

prepared for the enhanced response. Oh and hey I didn't notice this little

doohickey earlier. Turns out that it comes with a little plastic joystick nub

that you just shove into the d-pad's hole. Hmm I'm not sure if that's any better or

worse but I suppose we'll see soon enough. So yeah at this point we're ready

to get it running, all you gotta do is plug in your five pin AT keyboard's DIN

connector, or a PS/2 keyboard with the appropriate adapter. Then plug in the

Game Star's keyboard cable into your PC and then plug in the controller to the

adapter. And now it's time for DOS!

All right everything's all hooked up and

ready to go, hopefully. Got the disk in the drive let's see if it works,

fingers crossed. That's a good sign, and yep! And right away I see that Wolfenstein 3D

folder, so that answers that question: it does come with the shareware version of

Wolfenstein on the disk. "Install to C" oh good awesome.

"Utilities have been successfully installed. Your Game Star disk comes with

id Software's Wolfenstein 3D Episode 1." Yeah go ahead and install that too,

though I think I have it already on here, but uh [typing, beeping] Can't go wrong with another copy of

Wolfenstein. Alright that's good but let's go ahead and check out this Game

Star directory and see what we get here. So here's the program, interesting how

this looks closer to like, the dog bone controller of the NES. I wonder if that

was the design they were gonna go with at first. "The mapping can be done by

first click on a joystick button then on a key switch button, repeat the process

for all buttons." So it's click and click again. And then we can assign them, it

looks like those are assigned the arrow keys right

now. The A button is assigned to five on the numpad the B is on space. And then

those are the turbo buttons. And then we have down and enter. Seems like select

should maybe be escape, there we go. Yeah enter makes sense. And I'm gonna

change it to Ctrl and Alt for A and B. So it automatically switched

the turbo buttons. And it looks like I can change the turbo speed over here as

well. And there we go we have platform.joy and I guess we're done! So "download

the current mapping," okay. "Press the GameStar load button." That'd be this. I guess

that was it? Yeah well I'm not gonna try Wolf3D right now, what I want to do is Jill

the Jungle. Alright so wow. [laughs] Yeah that's already working!

makes sense I mean it's just inputting keyboard commands. On the other hand I

already hate this d-pad. Like yeah I'm pressing down and it's going up in some

cases, it's just like it doesn't rock around at all how it should. That is the

worst, so getting rid of that. So yeah let's just go up and down. So we should

have start as enter and it is. That's awesome. That's, yes. So escape and

enter work let's see--hahaha. Oh! And yeah we can't actually shoot anything. Dude.

Well I mean it works exactly as it says. It literally is -- dude that's friggin cool.

Because I've seen other adapters for like, you know, serial and of course USB,

things like that for NES controllers and stuff on PCs, you

know new and old. But I have never had one that just plugs into the keyboard.

And not only that but is also, you know, configurable to be whatever you need

it to be, which that's awesome. Okay actually the d-pad is not as bad as I

thought it was at first. That joystick though is the worst, the d-pad seemed to

be usable at least for those a few moments that I was playing Jill.

Just press escape check that out: enter enter enter enter enter, escape escape escape

escape escape enter enter - yeah like that's, I mean. I don't know why I'm so

impressed but it amuses me! Let's see, something in here that I can use with

turbo... Duke Nukem II? Okay so I don't have the right controls mapped or the right

keyboard commands mapped to the controller, so let me see if I can actually use the

buttons that are on here to remap on the fly without having to go into the

software. "If you wish to enter any or all of these preset functions just follow

these simple steps," okay. "Press, hit the key and release, the Game Star set button."

Okay there is an LED on that, it's just really hard to see, but it is lit up.

"Press a button or direction on the gamepad and press a keyboard key," and

that should be it that seems pretty simple. So again that's working just fine.

Wow yeah, no it totally worked. So I remapped Control to A right there

and then B shoots, so I can you know just do that or [presses turbo] all right, so there's the

there's the rapid fire. Honestly I can do it way quicker like this but... you

could see that in that software I was able to change the speed of the rapid

fire so that's cool. There we go rapid fire in the game is way better than on

the controller. I don't need rapid-fire hardware! So about the only other things

I really wanted to try in here is of course getting an original NES

controller to work, because I mean that just makes sense right? I wish I had some

more obscure, you know, kind of odd NES controllers but honestly I'm not a big

NES collector person. All I have are these original control pads which, I'm

just if it'll let me like switch it out on

the fly now that the computers already turned on. So alright.

Game Star controller's unhooked, gonna plug in this thing here. So it seems to

have reset it, or maybe I accidentally hit the reset button on the Game Star

when I was plugging it in. Either way I need to redo the controls again. Let's see

how good I am at doing this: hit set, hit the controller button, hit that, it's set.

[chuckling in amusement]

There's some sort of strange mental disconnect about playing DOS games with

an NES controller. I've never experienced that up until right now and this feels

good man. I've always liked the simplicity of the NES controller you

know? Cuz obviously I just sort of grew up playing it at friends' houses, just

absolutely everywhere. It's just a ubiquitous kind of controller and it has

that phenomenal d-pad that's -- they just got it right from the beginning as far

as I'm concerned. You got controllers like the Gravis Gamepad which, you know

what, as much as I enjoy it I've never liked the d-pad on there. And the buttons

even aren't that great either. But this? Oh this feels as it should.

Okay well you know obviously we got to do the one last test. All right we have

to try Duke3D because... ya know. Oh crap I don't know what settings I have

this on, I should probably check. All right so I have set these to some controls

that should work with like, you know. Space,

Alt, and Control. Control control. And then we'll see how it plays.

[sees how it plays as Duke Nukem says angry things in the background]

Ah yep yep, works perfectly fine. So I just have the d-pad sort of turning and

then moving forward and backward, I've got this as jump, that shoots, and then

that I think will be open the door. Start just presses enter, so I probably should

have remapped that to something more useful.

I wish I had run on, lemme put run -- there we go. Oh it's select, that's right. Yep don't

need run on, that is way too quick for this d-pad. So the NES controller is not

the ideal Duke Nukem 3D controller input device thing. But hey gets the job done and

it's amusing. That's what's most important. I just peed in Duke Nukem 3D

using an NES controller. That meets the LGR seal of approval! Yeah we gotta try

Wolfenstein 3D before the video is done! This will be a good use for that turbo

button for sure. Well once again I just gotta say that I am mighty impressed

with the Dynapoint Game Star. What it's doing isn't necessarily unheard

of, or even super unusual or anything like that: it's just an adapter that

converts another kind of input over into keyboard commands, I have quite a few

devices that do that kind of thing. But this one just stands out to me for how

obscure it is, at least for the entire kit like this together. I had no idea it was

supposed to come with a controller until I found this boxed. And then of course it

stands out for being an adapter from the early '90s that is meant to convert

Nintendo controllers over to a PC. There are other things that I've come across

that of course convert NES controllers over to the PC but not from 1993. And

certainly none that are an individual box that can be programmed, that's really

cool. And also the fact that you don't have to use that software, it's