Multitap

Multi-tap also refers to a text-entry system for mobile phones.

A multitap is a video game console peripheral that increases the number of controller ports available to the player, allowing additional controllers to be used in play, similar to a USB hub. A multitap often takes the form of a box with three or more controller ports which is then connected to a spare port on the console itself.

Mainly sports games have supported multitaps due to the multiplayer aspect of some sport games, though some role-playing video games and first person shooters have taken advantage of multitap support.

History

Early multitaps

NES Four Score for the Nintendo Entertainment System

The first multitap device to be produced was by NEC-Hudson Soft for the PC-Engine / TurboGrafx-16 in 1987. The PC-Engine is one of the few consoles to have been originally fitted with only one controller port. To make "multiplayer" gaming possible, one had to purchase the Turbo Tap, expanding the PC-Engine to 5 players.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) saw two official multitaps, the NES Four Score and the wireless NES Satellite.

Multitaps during the fourth generation

Electronic Arts, a major 3rd party developer for the Sega Genesis, released the 4 Way Play to allow for four-player for its sports games. Later, Sega released their own four-player adapter which was incompatible with EA's. This problem was later remedied by Sega redesigning their adapter to support both the Sega and EA formats.

J-Cart with two built-in controller ports

Codemasters developed a quasi-multitap for the Mega Drive called the J-Cart, first released in 1994. The game would have two extra joypad ports built into the cartridge itself, thus negating the need to buy extra hardware (beyond two more joypads) to play four-player games.

Nintendo, in conjunction with Hudson Soft, released in 1993, the Super Multitap for the Super Nintendo. It could be purchased bundled with the well regarded game Super Bomberman which helped establish the popularity of the peripheral. Several other compatible SNES Multitaps followed. With the success of the Nintendo device, the term "multitap" became synonymous with similar devices.

A few games released for the Amiga home computer system after 1995 included support for custom-built multitaps. Instructions for how to build a multitap were included in the manual to classic Amiga racing sequel Super Skidmarks. The Amiga multitap would plug into the computer's parallel port and provide two additional ports for use. Earlier, the Amiga version of Bomberman, Dynablaster had already included support for a similar device.

Decline

An official multitap for the PlayStation

During the fifth generation multitaps were released by Atari for the Jaguar, Sega for the Saturn and Sony for its PlayStation and (in the sixth generation) PlayStation 2 consoles. The PlayStation Multitap allows the same number of memory cards as controllers. In games such as Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, this allows all players to insert memory cards and track their personal statistics. The PlayStation 2 allows for the use of 8 controllers and 8 memory cards simultaneously by plugging in a multitap in both controller ports.

Later consoles had no need for a multitap peripheral. Initially, this was due to console manufacturers increasing the number of controller ports on home consoles to four. While the first console to support 4 controllers was the Bally Astrocade, the feature became common with the introduction of the Nintendo 64 in 1996 and all subsequent home consoles, with the key exception of the Sony PlayStation 2, which included two controller ports as standard. Ultimately, wireless controllers became standard with the introduction of the Xbox 360 in 2005, allowing support for at least four controllers without any physical connectors.

Method of operation

Many systems were not designed with multitaps in mind, and so require some clever design to work. Because of this, games usually have to be specially written to include multitap support.

The most common way of implementing 8 and 16 bit multitaps is to multiplex the signals from each attached controller in some way. Some systems have unused lines available on the controller port, designed for future expansion, which can be used. Another popular technique is to serialise the data from each controller. Since the NES/SNES uses a serial bus for standard controllers, creating a multitap is simply a case of increasing the amount of serial data available to the console. In that way, an almost unlimited number of extra controllers can be connected.

Later systems used more complex buses, such as the N64 serial bus, the Dreamcast Maple Bus or USB. These buses tend to be more modular and can already support more than one device per port, making the multitap little more than a hub.