By Andrew Liszewski
Remember a time when joysticks were built like a tank, and ergonomics was a term used only for office furniture? Well you can now relive those days with this retro joystick that’s been upgraded with a USB connection allowing you to play your MAME games on your PC the way they were meant to be played. Of course it also works with any modern game that supports a standard gamepad controller, so if you miss that feeling of cramped hands and sore fingers, you won’t want to let this one slip by. It’s available from Thumbs Up (UK) for about $32, though they appear to be sold out until July 6.
[ USB Classic Joystick ] VIA [ Gearlog ]
This stick is manufactured by Legacy Engineering in the USA (the same people who created the Atari Flashback 2.0 console), who sell it for $15.99. The joystick's big claim to fame is that you can remove the USB controller PC board inside and connect up to ten arcade controls to it, making it a very inexpensive arcade interface board for building MAME cabinets.
Definitely old skool. I wonder if it's so realistic that you have to open the puppy up with a phillips head and then move the bubble contacts on the PCB in order to rectify a stuck controller? The 2600 had a notorious problem with this on aging controllers.
These don't have dome caps like the old Atari sticks, in fact these have really nice gold contact points. Looks different from the original photo on Curt Vendel's site, but this is actually nicer, it has 12 buttons instead of 10. I just finally got my two sticks (waited since December) but well well worth the wait (the guy had some heart operations or something) and these joysticks are great. I paid $15 for each of mine, $32 from the UK seems really steep. I hope they are available at http://www.legacyengineer.com again and they aren't going up in price, these sticks are great, I just took the first one and put it into my MAME machine and the other one I'm adding an extra button to it. Thanks Curt!
Here is a pic of my controller from Legacy:
http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss131/retrog…
I found these joysticks for sale here:
http://www.legacyengineer.com/storefront
They even have different colored ones too!!!
I found these joysticks for sale here:
http://www.legacyengineer.com/storefront
They even have different colored ones too!!!