Can we disable UDLR directions when a diagonal Joystick move is detected or program a joymap for a digital joystick?

[Luzie]

Question: Can we disable UDLR directions when a diagonal joystick move is detected? Or program a joymap for a digital joystick?

My problem:

I have game "Way of the Exploding Fist" for Spectrum Next/"TBBLUE" ( https://wearespectrumprogrammers.com/product/wotef/ ).
This one can be played by 8 directional keyboard keys as can be seen on the first picture. I was able to program my digital joystick in MAME even to a diagonal direction e.g. "keyboard key C or Joy 1 Down Joy 1 Right".
But in MAME the Game now also recognizes DR directions when I steer Joystick diagonal to "Joy 1 Down Joy 1 Right".
What I need is that MAME should ignore UDLR when I press a diagonal direction.

On original Hardware/Computer "Spectrum Next" Joystick only recognises one of the possibilities "D" or "R" or "Diagonal DR".

2025-11-06 21_02_09-ZX Spectrum Next_ TBBlue [tbblue] - MAMEUI 0.282.0 (LLP64).png (55.31 KiB) Viewed 873 times

2025-11-06 21_00_45-ZX Spectrum Next_ TBBlue [tbblue] - MAMEUI 0.282.0 (LLP64).png (140.71 KiB) Viewed 873 times

[Luzie]

My problem/question should be solved by next Release of MAME: Native Support for Kempston/Megadrive-Joysticks may be added.

Picture from "Pull Request-Version" of MAME:

2025-11-12 22_01_22-ZX Spectrum Next_ TBBlue [tbblue] - MAME 0.282 (LLP64).jpg (130.67 KiB) Viewed 200 times

2025-11-12 22_02_52-ZX Spectrum Next_ TBBlue [tbblue] - MAME 0.282 (LLP64).jpg (130.24 KiB) Viewed 200 times