Q: Do I need any drivers for Windows to use this joystick?
A: No. Windows from 98SE, 2000, XP and newer versions already include default system HID drivers for generic joystick so you can connect your MJoy and use it straight away.
Q: Why did you choose general microcontroller ATMega8 while there are many specialized ones which have USB function built in hardware?
A: The main reason was wide availability of ATMega8 in most of electronic stores. To buy a specialized USB microcontroller in small quantities is very complicated and the price gets
inadequately high. ATMega8 is cheap. Other reason is that Igor Cesko has already implemented USB protocol on it so I needed less work to make a USB Joystick controller out of it.
Q: I can buy different ATMega8 chips. Which of them is suitable for me?
A: I use ATmega8-16PI in my own piece.
Number 16 means that this chip can handle 16MHz speed. There are chips with this figure 8 - don't buy them because they are too slow for 12MHz operation.
PI means that package type is DIP which is easy to solder even with shaking hands :). AI and MI options are better if you want to have small nice and tidy device on specially made PCB. There is one such PCB variant in Versions page. Another benefit of AI and MI is that they have 8 ADC inputs so you have possibility to have 8 axes.
Some more to come...
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