FRS' Sega Page


Sega Saturn joystick pinout and Megadrive adapter


There are a lot of pinouts listed for the sega saturn joystick connector out there on the web, but most of them use nonstandard naming for the pins, and have missing pins. Here's the complete pinout naming and how to reroute the pins to make the Megadrive->Saturn adapter.

This is the Sega Saturn male connector on the joystick:
Sega Saturn male connector on controller

Saturn
 Megadrive/
Genesis
 Pin name
1
 5
 Vcc
2
 2
 Down
3
 1
 Up
4
 7
 TH
5
 9
 TR
6
 6
 TL
7
 4
 Right
8
 3
 Left
9
 8
 GND


Note: The Sega Saturn is expected to recognize and work with Megadrive joypads, and multi-tap. But if you build the reverse adapter, Megadrive games won't recognize any of the Sega Saturn buttons or even the controllers at all.