For 2600 and microcomputer games like amiga, spectrum, etc?I'm thinking about buying this cheetah 125+ or something similar, getting a usb adapter and going wild on 2600 and speccy emulators>Also everyone is saying the 2600 controllers were shit so I dunno, wasn't born back then
>>12278569I'm not a fan, the quality is all over the place. With a regular Atari stick you know what you're getting and they're reliable. That said, Atari makes brand new ones now, and they're actually good, so maybe consider that. They have the NES style one as well, that's what I've switched to using.
>>12278569>the 2600 controllers were shitthey were, you burned through them like no tomorrow they just dont last.your Cheetah joystick doesnt fare to well either. get a Competition Pro, they can take a beating
c64 joysticks were absolute garbage, hated them even as a kid and just used the keyboard whenever I could (the keyboard was also absolute garbage)
>>12278569Had that one for my +2, it was awful and broke really quickly. QAOP for life.
>>12278569It's hard to go on external appearance alone because these kinds of joysticks could have a wide variety of internal mechanisms. Some were terrible, some were quite good. Many of them have a very long throw, which lead to players gripping the shaft at a lower than intended point to compensate for this. If you see video or photo of a skilled player using one of these you'll often see them using that style. What's always been kind of baffling is how much of a disconnect there was between controller designers in the 80s and actual arcade controls. There were so many of these tall flight-stick style joysticks compared to something that might resemble the average arcade ball-top leaf switch joystick of the 80s. I guess it looked more "tactical" on the shelf and sold better to teenagers and kids.
>>12278569They varied WILDLY in quality.>I guess it looked more "tactical" on the shelf and sold better to teenagers and kids.Flight simulator baby.Also note that balltop arcade sticks are usually leaf switches and directionals, while many of these joysticks are analog controls, and could double for paddle controls.I don't suggest going vintage here unless you're REALLY into it. t. Learned to solder at age 5 because of these fucking sticks.
>>12278626thiseverybody had one eventually, because the other shitty cheap ones broke
>>12278569>How goodGarbage, but slightly less garbage than things like the 2600 stick.
>>12279530I can feel this image
>fake arcade joysticks that don't actually move you just put pressure on themwho thought this was a good idea
>>12278569There is zero point. Just use a modern pad. You are emulating and this won’t make anything feel any more authentic.I went through about five cheetah 125+ back in the day. Quality is variable.>>12279492This was better. Still broke a lot.>>12278626This was better still. Never broke one/
>>12279530I really wonder what the original design idea was behind floppy non-autocentering joysticks. I don't think it was just saving the 2 cents for a spring.
>>12280067They are for flight simulators and use as a mouse-like pointer device.
>>12280067Joysticks at this time are not mass produced tuned assembly line shit. Much of this shit is hand soldered. The spring is not trivial.You see those slides and dials? Those are for centering your shit and activating/deactivating the springs. You would have to calibrate your joystick every time you started up some games. Something like say breakout, or arkanoid, you turn the spring off. My first joysticks didn't even have ports, not even serial ports. They connected via an IC on the logic board..
I had a couple of these cheap joysticks decades ago. All I remember is the cheap hollow-feeling plastic, goofy springs and how the responsiveness was very random. Mine were the really cheap ones though with the sad little suction cups that didn't stick to anything.
>>12280075>They connected via an IC on the logic board.Isn't that how several of the early consoles worked?
>>12280148I've wondered how often people actually used the suction cups. Back in the 2000s I duct-taped my small arcade stick to table in order to make it feel more stable and responsible.Strange that you never really hear about people making "real arcade" controllers until the late 80s at the very earliest. No one wanted to swipe some parts from a local arcade and pad-hack a Colecovision controller?
>>12280257Back in the 80s, at least one company did make a joystick with the base being more or less the size of the control panel of an arcade cabinet.I don't remember who made it, just remember seeing it in a magazine. And 5 minutes of scrolling google images doesn't turn up one ... I can't think of a search query to isolate to images from that era, mostly modern made ones come up.There were also devices like pic more widely available. I have a similar thing called "Stick Stand" which works great for Robotron on the 7800.
Konix made some quality ones. I have an actual vintage Navigator that still works, though one of the diagonals is a bit unreliable. But it's not worse than the reproduction Atari stick I bought which also feels worn and unreliable like a vintage stick, maybe that's what they were going for?
>>12278626Is the new one of these, the USB one by speedlink any good? I might go for one of these instead>>12279664Thanks anon >>12280054I never had a joystick/ arcade stick like that, I would like to try it and use it.on games that used them. I love dpads but it feels wrong for pre-nes games.
>>12279696People who sold millions of them
>>12279696example?
>>12280054>You are emulating and this won’t make anything feel any more authentic.Nonsense
>>12280321just add before:1980 to your search terms
>>12280257Strange that you imagine you know what anon really hears about. Stranger still that you imagine it would mean anything even if you really could. Many people were making "real arcade controllers" in the 70's. 2600 controllers were hot garbage and any tard who didn't fail shop class could make something infinitely better for the price of just one replacement.
>>12281547He's probably referring to the original Atari CX40. Which technically does "move", but I can see what he means. Almost nobody actually thinks it was a good joystick though.
>>12278569Because they weren't analog sticks where the spring wore out and you got drift and had to recalibrate them on every game run. They were fully digital, used mechanical switches like arcade sticks, you could hear them "click" whenever you moved them into a direction.Shit, I need to repair my Quickjoy II. Last time I tried it, the springs were fine but they had major contact problems unless you used it very violently. It probably just got rusty and needs a shot of contact cleaner.
>>12282206I actually liked them. Good size. Felt fine in the hands. Responsive. My original pair never failed me. Though i acknowledge when I've bought other people's systems, it wasn't uncommon for them to have a half dozen of them with various issues or jerry-rigged fixes.Never cared much for the other ones out there, like Wico or Pointmaster. Suncom's Slik Stik and Tac-2 I thought were good, though they took a different approach to the switches than everyone else.
>>12282294Let me guess, you're a man with no arms.
>>12278569Utter trash. Only had a single button (you see several in the pic but they all do the same thing) so you had games with up to jump making it feel even worse. The NES is the greatest console of all time simply for inventing the B button.
