USB joystick adapter recommendations?

Hey there! I’ve been spending some time on my laptop playing these classic freebies—you know, stuff like Super Mario and those old-school retro titles...
Right now, I’m just using my keyboard to play, but I was wondering: if I pick up one of those USB gamepads/controllers, will I actually be able to use it for these games, or am I stuck tapping away at the keyboard forever?
Also, quick question about hardware—I have this external DVD drive that plugs in via USB, so I was thinking, can I burn the games I download onto a disc to play them from the DVD, and would I be able to plug the controller into the drive itself? Would that setup even work?

man, seriously... how many questions can one person even ask? you sound like a little kid lol. and it's "is it," not what you said. plus, if you buy a controller, obviously you aren't gonna use a keyboard anymore, right? makes sense. honestly, I don't even get half of what you're asking about.

Paul Robinson6 said:Hey, I was wondering about something regarding my laptop—I've been playing these free little games on it, stuff like Super Mario and things in that vein...
I’ve been playing everything on my keyboard lately—it gets a bit old, I guess—and I was wondering about something. If I pick up one of those USB gamepads to plug into my laptop, will I actually be able to play these games with the controller, or am I still going to be stuck tapping away at the keyboard?

Maybe—and I'm just speculating here—if you're dealing with an emulator where you can actually remap the keys, there might be a way to make it work. But if it's one of those old Flash games? Probably not. Those things are usually pretty locked down.

Paul Robinson6 said:So, I’ve been thinking about this—I have this DVD player that apparently supports USB drives, and I’m wondering if there's any actual logic to how I can use it for gaming. Specifically, I was curious if the games I download could be burned onto a CD, and then if I could actually run them off the DVD player itself? Also, would it even be possible to plug a joystick into the unit... and if so, would the whole setup even work? I guess I'm just trying to figure out if this is a viable way to play or if I'm just chasing a pipe dream here.

No, no, and definitely no.

Even if the game doesn't natively support controllers (though I'm pretty sure you're talking about a gamepad), this little utility should do the trick:
http://www.electracode.com/4/joy2key...%20Version.htm
Basically, once you map your controller buttons to specific keyboard keys, the software just "listens" for those inputs and simulates the keystrokes for you. So yeah, it’ll probably work for pretty much any game you throw at it.
Best,