Meet the iCode Quad Ultimate: Four-Player Atari Controllers on Any Modern System, and a Game Machine Too
Four Atari controller ports. One USB plug. And a color screen that turns the adapter into a game machine of its own. The iCode Quad Ultimate brings your original Atari joysticks, paddles, driving controllers, trackballs and keypads to your PC, Mac, MiSTer FPGA, Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, RetroPie, Batocera and more, for up to four players at once. No drivers, no software to install.
See the product: iCode Quad Ultimate
Four Players, One Setup
Most Atari adapters give you one port and one player. The Quad has four Atari controller ports built in, and each one shows up on your computer or console as its own USB gamepad. Four players are four separate controllers, which is exactly what multiplayer games and emulators expect.
- Ports 1 and 2 take every Atari controller: 2600 joysticks, the 7800 two-button joystick, paddles, driving controllers, trackballs and keypads.
- Ports 3 and 4 add two more joystick or driving controller players, and automatically copy the setup of Ports 1 and 2. You set up a four-player game once and everyone gets the same controls.
- Need fewer players? Turn Ports 3 and 4 off with one setting.
Smooth Paddles, Up to Four Players
The Quad reads both paddles on Ports 1 and 2, for up to four paddle players. It uses the same jitter-free paddle pipeline as the rest of the iCode Ultimate line, so paddles stay steady with no noise or drift. Plug paddles in and the Quad detects and calibrates them on its own.
Split Mode presents each paddle as its own USB gamepad, which MiSTer, RetroPie, Batocera and RetroArch need for multiplayer paddle games. See our guide to 4-player paddles on MiSTer.
It’s a Game Machine Too
The Quad Ultimate CX and CX-W have a large color screen and a speaker, and they play games on their own. At power-up, a start-up menu lets you pick the game adapter or one of the game modes.
Atari Games
The Quad becomes an Atari 400/800/XL/XE computer and an Atari 5200 on its built-in screen, played with your real Atari controllers. The Atari operating systems are built in. This isn’t a fixed list of games: bring your own Atari 8-bit and 5200 library of programs, cartridges and disk images.
- Play Castle Crisis (Warlords style), Kaboom! and Super Breakout with your Atari paddles.
- Play 4-player M.U.L.E. with four joysticks.
- An on-screen keyboard gives you every Atari key.
Atari Games uses the open-source atari800 emulator with AltirraOS by Avery Lee. Our RP2350 version is on GitHub under the GPLv3: github.com/alijani1/Pico2Atari8.
Arcade Games
On top of your Atari library, 13 popular MAME arcade games run on the screen: Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Frogger, Dig Dug, Xevious, Space Invaders, Pooyan, Time Pilot, Super Cobra and Scramble. Each game keeps its high-score table when the Quad is switched off. The arcade engine is our open-source Pico2Arcade.
Bring your own game files. None are included, but adding them is easy: the Quad shows up on your computer as a USB drive, and you copy the files onto it. See the guide to adding games.
Built-in Mini-Games
Three games come built in and need no files at all: Iron Dome (Missile Command style, great with your Atari trackball), Brick Bash (Arkanoid style) and Jaw Cruncher (Pac-Man style). High scores go to the community leaderboards on iCodeHub.
Three Models
| Quad Ultimate CX | Quad Ultimate CX-W | Quad Ultimate SE | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Atari controller ports | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| USB | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Bluetooth, 4 wireless players, battery | ✔ | ||
| Color screen and speaker | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Atari, arcade and built-in games | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Voice prompts | ✔ |
The CX-W connects as up to four standard Bluetooth gamepads plus a Bluetooth mouse, and switches to USB automatically when you plug it in. The SE has no screen and tells you out loud what it’s doing: plug in paddles and it says “Port one. Paddles.”
Free Setup and Updates with iCodeHub
Everything is set up in iCodeHub, our free web app. It runs in Chrome or Edge with nothing to install. Map any button to any gamepad action, tune paddle, trackball and driving sensitivity, keep 10 presets on the device with up to 100 backed up online, and update the firmware in a few clicks.
Get Yours
The iCode Quad Ultimate is available now in the iCode store. Questions? Ask us on Discord or in the Community Forum, and follow us on Facebook and YouTube.