Lost annotations: -For the CharacteriSticks, he mentioned a fourth model based on Batman -For the Konix Speed-King, he mentions that the one in the video IS an analog stick that he didn't know existed.
Psychologists - "Hoarding is very unhealthy mental practice" Ashens - "I know, I studied it at uni. Anyway, would you like to see my vast collection of 80's joysticks?"
I had a terminator grenade joystick until my cousin stole it and took it into a school fancy dress day. It being essentially a hand grenade with about a metre of cable attached it took about 0.005 seconds for him to throw it at a classmate and swing it around like a ball and chain. This lead to it being cracked and broken, confiscated for almost a year and some kid loosing three front teeth. Ah.... nostalgia...
I read this comment before the end credit sting and thought you were talking about the Terminator head joystick. I was confused why you were calling it a hand grenade.
to defend the Maverick a bit (as well as the same feature in the NES Advantage), the two-player addition is probably good for certain games that allow for two players to take turns playing a one player game (like Super Mario Brothers). The controllers are good, and therefore expensive, so instead of getting two for each player, one player has their turn, then switches to the second player and passes it on. Of course, this doesn't help for co-op or versus games...
I'm surprised you didn't talk about any of the... HORRIBLE mercury switch joysticks, which didn't have bases, and were just a stick with a button on the top, and you just tilted it, and a bit of MERCURY on the inside would move around, and connect two contacts for what direction you want to move in. YES, these exist. Look up the "Le Stick" (yes, it is the stupidest joystick name ever, especially since it wasn't French developed or manufactured)
Struggling to sleep once again, at least I always have this video. At this point it feels like an old friend who comes over when you're scared from the thunder to comfort you.
I watched this on the bus home from uni today and found it really difficult to not laugh out loud because of: A) that Terminator joystick's face and B) "Set phasers to buttplug!" ...I think I love you.
7 years after and I keep coming back to this video again and again... The memories of an old man is the magic touch that turn something apparently common into something amazing. Thanks Ashens✊
To this day a micro-switch click still makes me smile, you can usually tell right away if your new fangled throttle and stick you spent a week's worth of wages on just to play a single game is worth those pennies and it's as soon as you press a button :D
My parents hated the micro-switches in the Quickshot Maverick 1M. My dad would come baging on my bedroom door telling me to "keep it down" like there was a volume control on them.
Man, I really love the sounds of the joysticks with the microchips. I'd just go to arcades and move the joysticks around even if i wasn't playing a game.
The first controller shown, and the fact you could daisy-chain them together, kind of reminds me of the Panasonic 3DO, because you had to do the same thing with the Amstrad CPC controller
The two player thing on the large QuickShot control pad thing is likely if you only had the one controller, but wanted to play a two player game that expects two controllers, you could take turns
Hi, I'm from the 80s. What do you mean watch on your phone? Do you have a tiny 20 inch CRT, also called a television, strapped on your telephone receiver?
@@Mostlyharmless1985 it shouldn't hurt the mega drive because that's already designed to take master system controllers and games. but yes not usually a good idea to plug mega drive pads into other things, they work quite differently to enable more buttons over the same pins.
@@Mostlyharmless1985 really? It's a relatively low power, low voltage electric signal. I get that they wouldn't connect, but for the soft plastic Atari joystick connector, I can't imagine much physical damage. It's fairly obvious the OP wasn't literally talking about the "cords". Are you sure it's not something your older brother told you so you'd leave his game system alone?
@@googleboughtmee do the pins get broken? I only know about the Atari, but the adapter at the end of the cord is soft plastic, almost like rubber. The pins in the unit are fairly strong, they take quite a beating during normal use. If the physical pin positions didn't match up to an Atari joystick, it simply won't fit into the space, the rubbery connector would get a little mark at most. Never heard of pins actually breaking on an Atari. Ever.
The Commodore 64 had no standard main joystick port for single player games, some games used port 1 and some used port 2. This meant you had to switch the ports between different games. Port-switchers were a thing back then to solve this issue.
@@retrotasticular1642 i assume the switches on the joystick just change the a or b buttons? So the joystick itself would always be on the player 1 side. Though in Commando you could plug in a second joystick and use the fire button on that to throw grenades instead of the space bar so in that case the joystick would be absolutely brilliant
3:14 You actually can plug a Sega Master system controller into an Atari, and it will work. I don't think it works the other way (again, one button and joystick for the Atari).
Anything with a DB9 plug can be used with most computers 8 bit and 16 bit all saga consoles up to the Dreamcast or Saturn, Atari 2600 and 7800, Maybe an NES?
Ethan Ly Definitely not the NES, as it used a weird proprietary plug (3dreferenceimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/NES-plug-prongs.png) As for the others, you also have to deal with the wiring being different. I know that pluging in an Atari plug into an Apple II's joystick port didn't work--I tried that back in grade school.
The Konix speed king and Gravis MkVI were for the Apple II which used an analogue input but still often utilized a 9 pin connector (early Apple IIs never had a joystick port but the later Apple IIe did)
I believe the ability of switching between Player 1 and Player 2 was for games like Track & Field, where you took turns instead of going simultaneously.
As others have pointed out, the Gravis was an analog joystick, and that travel adjustment it has actually made it one of the best. Longer travel = finer, more precise control, shorter travel = quicker control. And the buttons do actually all do different things. One of the best analog joysticks ever made in my opinion.
"Speedking" was the most awesome joystick (with micro switches) you could feel the quality click every time, whereas all the other sticks you would waggle, gave off a creaky squeak. It wouldn't diminish over the years either, never broke. Everyone would fight over it when it came down to who'd get what stick for a round of Summer Olympiad or Hired Guns. Two games so many years apart, testament to the quality of that stick. Everything else, joystick wise, died around it. Oh god how I loved that stick.
The bug had nice clicks but the main stick was just a little too small for my hands. Comparing it to the speed king. I needed that little ball on the top. I think the bug broke.
Hear, hear! I never saw a bug in my neck of the woods, but my Speedking was by far the longest lived of my joysticks. The actual microswitched Speedking, as opposed to the analogue model shown, had a collar around the bottom of the stick, which sat flush with the top surface of the base (i.e. there was no recess in the surface). It outlasted and out-performed (in my freakishly small hands) any other high quality joystick I owned.
I so loved my Cheetah Bug; great for Amiga shmups. Probably set me on my journey to being obsessed with traditional arcade sticks and modding them. And if anybody fancies some game controller jargon pickiness; the term for the sticks movement distance off centre isn't 'travel', but actually 'throw'. 'Throw' is the total distance a stick can move off centre. 'Engage', meanwhile, refers to how far you can move the stick before the input registers... so a 'long-engage' stick means you can move the stick a fair bit before input engagements. I happen to prefer 'short-throw, short-engage' sticks for my style of shmup playing. I won't start defining stick 'resilience', 'resistance' and 'restriction', as this comment post of mine is already getting dull! Great video ashens!
ASHENS. DO MORE VIDEOS LIKE THIS! The tone, the knowledgeability, the sincerity, and resulting humour; it’s a cut above all else you’ve done. I suppose you could say I’ve been a ‘fan’ of your videos for over a decade now, and even met you at an Irish bar in London ~7 years ago; indeed we were about to go in for a selfie and then I found my phone was dead, my great regret in life. Anyway, I digress, but what I want to say, is I know criticism sucks to hear sometimes and I don’t really mean it because you’re still on top of 99% of content out there, what you do is GOOD. However, having watched this I think even you don’t realise how much you fuel have left in the tank, this is GREAT, it’s some of the best content I’ve seen on TH-cam. I nearly didn’t click on it because, ok the title is niche and blends in with other things you’ve done, some of which tbh I now find samey and predictable as with the humour. Perhaps that’s why it hasn’t had the traction I think it deserves. But omfg, this is electric, you’re on fire. Do more like it for fucks sake man!!!!
I actually have a version of the Konix Speed King for the NES, although it was licensed by Epyx and called the 500XJ. The big difference is that the NES one actually has a microswitched joystick. It's really not a bad joystick at all actually. Sure, it's a little awkward to use at first, but I've played with way worse controllers and joysticks in the past.
Many of those are familiar for me... But... Where's TAC-2? One of the most perfect joysticks at it's time. Really competitive with Competition Pro etc. And VERY durable. It was almost like a brick... Smash, bash it, throw it through the toilet wall and it was still working... Believe me... Have been throwing out some 2 pieces of Amiga disc boxes (about 380 discs or so) out of 2nd floor window.... WITH Tac-2, which was the only thing working perfectly after that... To be honest...
The quickshot 2 Turbo doesn't actually use micro switches, but actually just has springs with slightly different contacts underneath. A disappointment I just discovered opening up mine to try and fix it. Also, the dual controller ports on the maverick are good for switching between Port1/2 for C64 games.. Seeing as devs could never make their damn minds up which one they wanted to stick with.
And since this review, got the maverick, to be disappointed to find the version I bought from ebay doesn't have microswitches.. Ordered it because of the sound of it from this video made me believe it was microswitched.. Still works well though, if a bit stiff.
Konix SpeedKing was a bloody excellent joystick! Ideal for playing whiles sat in a comfy chair rather than at a desk. Much better. The Bug was great too.
With the Superstar, I would be remiss if I didn't go "well ackshuallee..." and say that, from what I remember, arcade games with joysticks and buttons were not always with the joystick on the left; originally, they were on the right, with the mindset that you'd be using your more likely dominant right hand to control the action, but they decided to switch it around to make it more difficult for most of the righties to play and milk more quarters out of them, and it ended up sticking as the standard as players began adjusting their play style accordingly.
I love it too, but it looks more like the Alien from the first film with the exception of the brownish coloring. The one from Alien 3 was on all fours but I guess it wouldn't be practical for a joystick design. Either way I'm gonna try to get my hands on one.
No one ever thought of the Wiiremote & Nunchuck two handed style in those days? Would have been perfect! Thumbstick in one hand and the fire button in the other. I could have made a million if I came up with that idea when I was 5.
+Ethan “2buddy97” It needn't be wireless tech like the Wiimote, just a wire from the stick module to the button module and then the cable with the pinout connector. Not all Wii games used the Wiimote / Nunchuck combination with motion interaction. There's much to be said about the simple dividing of the gamepad in to two. The best example I found was Xenoblade on Wii... I recommend you try 30 minutes with Wiimote + Nunchuck if you have the opportunity ... the control scheme is so comfortable and effortless it almost feels like mind control.
The QuickShot 2 looks very much like one I had, except mine didn't say Spectravideo on it, maybe it was some generic clone or something. And I do also remember having a something similar but with microswitches, although in my experience the microswitch joysticks didn't last as long as the regular ones. The Speed King looks a lot like the Epyx (yes, same Epyx that did Summer Games, Winter Games, California Games, etc.) 500XJ that I badly wanted as a kid but never got, except it didn't look (or presumably feel) like it was supposed to be analog. Finally, I had a Gravis one that looks similar to the one you showed, but it was an analog version for a PC.
I think the Maverick had a Player 1/ Player 2 switch because some games would use joystick port 1 and some would use joystick port 2, so they put a switch to switch ports instead of unplugging the controller and swapping them
I had that Quick Shot for the NES. I used to use the player 1/2 switch to cheat on games like NARC. When you ran out of lives, you hit start for player 2 and continued on from where you died. 🙂My brother had one of the Gravis MK6 for his old 286 computer, and I never knew about that switch for adjusting the throw of the joystick.
I had one of thoseTerminator handgrenade joysticks.. I used it a lot, as it looked cool as shit (I was 6 years old). It was rather painful to use that tiny stick for prolonged periods of time, however. A lot of people swore by it though, claiming it was the best Joystick ever made. You could take out the split, which would make the handle pop off, revealing the button underneath. This happened a lot, while waiting for some game to load. If I remember correctly, they were actually made in Denmark by SuperSoft.. So might be slightly easier to find one here. I'll have a look ;x EDIT: Managed to find one.. Brand new in box though, so £90. Hells no.
I can imagine a kid who just bought that back in the day comming out of the shop where he bought it and everyone just starts running away screaming because they think he's some crazy terrorist kid suicide bomber.
+Sofa Anders Got one of those too. Yes, you can use it without the lever but it doesn't look anywhere as nice. I actually took mine apart and cleaned it, it has a surprisingly good build quality. 5 high-quality microswitches and rubber bushing to provide resistance, and a small piece of iron or lead pipe inside to give it its characteristic weight. High quality materials and all the parts fit together beautifully and snugly. These babies were made to last forever.
+Niko The Bosnian Back then all the kids would have gathered around him and wanted to have a look at that cool joystick. In those times people didn't live in fear.
Well, these joysticks worked well for many Amiga games, but I played *A LOT* of the pinball games like Dreams, Fantasies and Illusions, and those were impossible to play with these joysticks. Also many games just had a lot more controls, like Cannon Fodder and all of the Lemmings games, which I also played *a lot* but not as much. Turrican was great though.
Ooooo. Yesterday, I dusted of my A500 and gave it a whirl. Had to open the whole thing and re-seat the chips. But, one of my joysticks had the two connectors, black and gray. I, of course, plugged them both in. Two players hotseat! (Hot joystick?) Didn't work too well, hope I didn't fry anything. Not that it would matter. Mice didn't work, most of my sticks didn't work, 1MB extended memory was iffy, extra disk drive wasn't working, and 80% of the games didn't function. Near 30 year old tech does that. Good times. Interestingly enough, Flashback has an option for 2 button controller. I seem to recall you could get Sega controllers to work as two button controllers, with an adapter. Edit: Cruiser was the aforementioned joystick with two connectors. Black and transparent. Also got the zipstick. And a nagging feeling I've written this exact same tirade before.
+David Hoffnung I had one too. Should note that it was an analogue stick and not digital, as he seemed to think. Worked pretty well for those purposes.
Commodore Amiga had the best and most durable joystick ever made by humans. It was called Pacman Joystick, it was a Greek product and its manufacturing standards were exactly the same as the coin-op machines joysticks.
The two-player switchable Joystick is actually quite clever! You only need to buy one joystick, and no need to move the control wires on the console. You can just switch the controller around.
The Amiga did support the Sega 2nd button actually, and some games (like Battle Squadron for instance) did make use of it. Also missing from this roundup is the fantastic Wico leaf-contact joystick, that thing was indestructible, it survived every other joystick that i destroyed yes even the Konix Navigator (which was ok, apart from the front button digging in my finger after a while..).
There was also a speedking 2, which wasn’t just a repurposed analog stick. It was microswitched and had very little travel. It was actually a great stick and I replaced mine a couple of times when it broke. Later Commodore sticks ( including a revised speedking 2) had 2 distinct buttons. The short lived C64GS was supposed to use 2 buttons, but very few games did, because they also wanted to sell the cartridges to normal C64 owners. The few games that did use 2 buttons had the option to play with only one button.
Konix Speedking. Totally AWESOME piece of gear. (Micro switch version). Battered it to death for years and it was still going strong when Amiga USA crashed (cheers ya bastrds) and took Amiga UK down with it.
can confirm, the six button Sega megadrive controller used to work with my old Amiga 500+, which my dear old mum gave away FOR NOTHING DESPITE IT HAVING A PERFECTLY WORKING POWER PACK, YOU KNOW, THE FIRST THING THAT WOULD GO ON ALL AMIGA COMPUTERS. THANKS MUM.
that six button controller was a wonderful little controller, it felt like Sega built it around my hands, and was a massive improvement over the standard three button effort, which always felt too big. ahhh, nostalgings...
I once saw a used NES controller that was basically the Konix Speed King, but instead of the stupid stick, it had a smaller, red version of the buttplug looking thing from the Navigator.
I grew up in the 16-bit era and I did have a really good flight-stick joystick with the fire button on the top. It felt like a proper gear-stick and it was easy on my hypermobile wrists without being too stiff. (That's what she said...) I must have been lucky because I have large hands for a woman and absolutely hate gyroscopic and motion controls because my wrists are too flappy for accuracy. So something with a bit of heft to it but moving smoothly was my particular need and the fire button was made useful by my flexible thumbs. It's very much horses for courses but I think they'd perfected the controls by the time I got it, probably around 1992/93. When I got back into action gaming a few years ago I actually started looking for a joystick rather than a normal controller, and I'm very sad that the A500 mini comes with a controller rather than a joystick. But I do like analogue sticks a lot. They're the best of both worlds -- movement is easy without being too easy.
You are lucky. My device has 3 buttons and one huge one. One is the See Tabs, one is the Home Button and one is the back button. The huge button is a screen which you can have millions of buttons on. My device is a Samsung Phone :D
I'm pretty sure the "Gravis Mark 6" was analogue, a friend of mine had the PC version of it and we used it to play Wing Commander 2 (or was it Privateer?) Ah, good times...
I still have a Gravis Analog Pro, with the 15 pin contact. I bought it for my Amiga 500, with a 15 to 9 pin adapter you had an analog controller for the few games that supported it on the Amiga :) I think it was mostly for Gunship 2000 and Formula One Grand Prix I bought it. And perhaps F/A-18 Interceptor, I think that game also had analog support.... The side switches were function selectors for the buttons.
Actually, the controller that splits between player 1 and 2 would be useful. o3o Especially if you were playing Super Mario or something on the NES where player 1 and 2 HAD to have seperate controllers, this way you could just pass one back and forth.
Just got my Quickshot II Turbo in the mail today. Somebody imported it from the UK into the US because I bought it from a chap in Ohio. Haven’t tried it on my VIC 20 yet but it definitely is an improvement over the Kraft joystick I’ve been using. It’s almost like that Konix hand held joystick, but slightly less travel. Would you play Jeff Minter’s Aggressor with something that makes you feel like your piloting a toy helicopter?
Me too, Its up in my attic somewhere, Ive actually a shit load of games ive never even played, I was working in an empty house quite a few years back and i found a bag of old games cartridges, i can't remember what they are though, i must bring it down someday and have a look at them
holy shit, watching this video i suddenly realized my Logitech 3D joystick has microswitches in the little joystick on top of the joystick. How things have changed..
Used to have to play cross-handed using the Maverick, if you look back you´ll see it is the only joystick you held the stick with your left hand. Hated that. Like playing chopsticks on the piano.
Lost annotations:
-For the CharacteriSticks, he mentioned a fourth model based on Batman
-For the Konix Speed-King, he mentions that the one in the video IS an analog stick that he didn't know existed.
Thank you
There was an annotation mentioning that the Gravis joystick was analogue too.
I had a microswitched Speedking and it was amazing.
@@francistaylor1822 The microswitched one was my favorite joystick, although I may have liked the competition pro if I ever got my hands on one.
laughs in extension
This is by far my favorite Ashens video. He knows all about what he's talking about, and I trust his opinion on joysticks completely.
+The Ass King That's quite an endorsement, coming from The Ass King. Hail, Ass King!
+J.D. Whited Hail, citizen ;)
+J.D. Whited
Hail the Ass King? I think you're asking a bit much ...
+uTubeNoITube Do you throw your glove at me? Are you prepared to duel?
+The Ass King to bad those joysticks are 30 years old
The fact that Ashens tore down those joysticks just to show us the difference between the circuitry is why I love this channel.
In that case, go check out bigclivedotcom. If you love this channel, clive's will moisten whatever undergarments you happen to be wearing at the time.
Mate it's like two screws and the stuff in between, it's not a car
You have the same real name same me
@@njd834 Aahens is god
I snapped so many joysticks playing Daley Thomson's Decathlon. Good practice for when puberty hit though.
Alex Enzo And she hears you say "Aww shit I broke it."
Rachel Fujotesh*mother slowly walks out*
Alex Enzo Then she never comes back and trades you for another kid.
Well that escalated... Well not quickly, I suppose. But it got there in the end all right.
And now I'm sad.
Rachel Fujotesh >Sees son in fapping position
>"Aww shit I broke it"
I'm dying.
00:59 - Binatone Colour TV Game
03:50 - Amstrad JY-2
05:52 - Sinclair SJS1
08:18 - Spectravideo QuickShot II
09:26 - Cheetah 125+
10:10 - Spectravideo QuickShot IV
11:34 - Cheetah CharacteriSticks (T2, Alien³)
14:52 - Konix Speedking
16:40 - Konix Navigator
17:30 - Cheetah Bug
18:23 - Spectravideo QuickShot Maverick
19:38 - Kempston Competition Pro
20:25 - Powerplay Cruiser
21:36 - Zipstick
22:30 - Fantastick F3
23:17 - Gravis Mark VI
24:29 - QJ SuperStar
25:13 - Spectravideo QuickShot VII
Thank you.
Wow, really helped thanks
I have a QuickShot I, in fact I use it with my 2600. :3
Jonathan Parshall for once a useful one of these
Your sad
Psychologists - "Hoarding is very unhealthy mental practice"
Ashens - "I know, I studied it at uni. Anyway, would you like to see my vast collection of 80's joysticks?"
Including broken Sinclair ones in box
Still weird knowing Ashens has a PhD in psychology
Something about this video is incredibly intriguing, I just keep coming back. I must have seen it upwards of 50 times now, I can't get enough.
I always thought this was a pretty memorable one
The clicking of a microswitched joystick is super satisfying...
Can't just be me.
Nonono, I think it’s hella satisfying too
Unless it’s the konix navigator
It absolutely is
Same here it's like a clicky mech keyboard!
Clicky click
@@samholdsworth420 So glad People are still coming to this!
who's also watching this for the eleventy-billionth time?
16:44.
what, you egg? what, you egg? what, you egg? what, you egg? what, you egg?
I am.
It's a comfort video. I'm listening to it while I do my college lab work
Me rn, Ashens and James Rolfe have some of the best content with lots of rewatchability value in my honest opinion.
I had a terminator grenade joystick until my cousin stole it and took it into a school fancy dress day. It being essentially a hand grenade with about a metre of cable attached it took about 0.005 seconds for him to throw it at a classmate and swing it around like a ball and chain. This lead to it being cracked and broken, confiscated for almost a year and some kid loosing three front teeth.
Ah.... nostalgia...
+AnonEyeMouse
Confiscated? I would have taken it back and bashed whoever refused to give it back in the face until they died.
Will Pitts
LMFAO wow
+Objectified Cross I was a kid and went to a different school. I wasn't going to beat anyone to death except my cousin.
I read this comment before the end credit sting and thought you were talking about the Terminator head joystick. I was confused why you were calling it a hand grenade.
i want it i googled it it looks awesome even if it is made of shitty plastics
to defend the Maverick a bit (as well as the same feature in the NES Advantage), the two-player addition is probably good for certain games that allow for two players to take turns playing a one player game (like Super Mario Brothers). The controllers are good, and therefore expensive, so instead of getting two for each player, one player has their turn, then switches to the second player and passes it on. Of course, this doesn't help for co-op or versus games...
"set phasers to butt-plug "
I fucking lost it lol
Did you ever find what you lost?
For some reason this video calms my panic attacks, no idea why.
Thanks for making it.
When it's late at night and I can't fall asleep I come here and it helps me fall asleep. Good night!
Hello, me from 4 months ago. You and your terribly worded post. I'm back!
Oh hey, I'm very late! I actually do this on occasion too, it's a very calming video.
Yep, me too 😀
If you’re a channel about video games why does your avatar feature you wearing Luffy’s hat? Wouldn’t be called a channel about manga?
“You’d have to waggle your joystick as fast as you could”
Well, I’m sure many teenage boys were experts at that maneuver
Fair play lass, fair play.
I spat my drank out. Well done
@@corey1054aa
Back when the couch didn't look like it was about to disintegrate!
I never get bored by these.. Its like an experienced grandpa veteran telling his kids stories of the good ol days
I'm surprised you didn't talk about any of the... HORRIBLE mercury switch joysticks, which didn't have bases, and were just a stick with a button on the top, and you just tilted it, and a bit of MERCURY on the inside would move around, and connect two contacts for what direction you want to move in. YES, these exist. Look up the "Le Stick" (yes, it is the stupidest joystick name ever, especially since it wasn't French developed or manufactured)
Rerez looked into that one. Very, very carefully.
Does that joystick only exist because someone got caught designing a dildo during the workday and had to lie quickly?
Maybe it was a troll stick
@@potatoenjoyer5255 a con-troll-er, if you will.
They weren't safe. Very dangerous to own now. I seen one youtuber review one. Had to wear gloves to review it.
Since every episode of Good Eats was removed from youtube, I have started watching Ashens videos while eating. I made a good choice.
Kit Wells The removal of that show from TH-cam & Netflix is intensely frustrating.
25:50 on the left side of the screen a little white thing falls onto the sofa (probably a chip from the ceiling)
Yep
Good god help the aliens have came D:
That is Dillian Whytes Crumb.
I'd say that he just spit on the sofa.
I noticed that too though I could swear it was at 25:53
I think he has poundland quality asbestos
Struggling to sleep once again, at least I always have this video. At this point it feels like an old friend who comes over when you're scared from the thunder to comfort you.
I watched this on the bus home from uni today and found it really difficult to not laugh out loud because of:
A) that Terminator joystick's face
and
B) "Set phasers to buttplug!"
...I think I love you.
Pervert
7 years after and I keep coming back to this video again and again... The memories of an old man is the magic touch that turn something apparently common into something amazing. Thanks Ashens✊
This is the most decent showing a good amount of classic joysticks video just a few videos about this were uploaded to youtube.
"Set phasers to buttplug." - Dr. Stuart Ashen, 2013
thats a top quote certanly, ROFL
Guru Laghima an excellent quote
Guru Laghima new yearbook quote
It belongs in a YTP.
"Ergodynomic? What?" - Dr. Stuart Ashen, 2013
Fun fact; Rheostats are almost the same as variable resistors but are rated for much higher current, so they are in fact not the same thing.
That was fun! Thanks!
Something about the click of the micro-switches seems oddly pleasant, somewhat satisfying to hear.
Microswitch clickiness is exactly why I swapped out my fightstick's stick for a seimitsu ls-56. It's phenomenal for basically everything.
To this day a micro-switch click still makes me smile, you can usually tell right away if your new fangled throttle and stick you spent a week's worth of wages on just to play a single game is worth those pennies and it's as soon as you press a button :D
My parents hated the micro-switches in the Quickshot Maverick 1M. My dad would come baging on my bedroom door telling me to "keep it down" like there was a volume control on them.
Man, I really love the sounds of the joysticks with the microchips. I'd just go to arcades and move the joysticks around even if i wasn't playing a game.
Whoops mean microswitches. Silly autocorrect.
Gaaaaaaay
+minioreo 2 Do you find yourself funny?
Because you're not.
You're just a sad, sad, little man.
Leaf switches are good for certain games though.
+Harrison Campbell yo dude bra use the internet for love man never hate bra man
I can’t believe it’s been 8 years since the first time I watched one of my favorite videos on TH-cam. Thanks Stuart👍
i remember watching this 11 years ago and thinking "wow, an ashens video can be quite informative"
Yes, yes...
The first controller shown, and the fact you could daisy-chain them together, kind of reminds me of the Panasonic 3DO, because you had to do the same thing with the Amstrad CPC controller
Was already the case with the Atari 2600.
I don't know what it is about this video but it never gets old for me.
Anything else similar to this you could do in the future?
"The Cheetah Tortoise". What a contradictory name...
SolidSonicTH true cause cheetahs are considered the fastest... While tortoises are considered slow
+TheKHfan358over3d
Maybe it can go fast, AND win the race?
+Aryzen Inniriea I'm thoroughly convinced it would do neither.
A Fulson Device
Maybe it can go slow, AND lose the race?
Just like speed weed
The saga is complete after almost a decade
The two player thing on the large QuickShot control pad thing is likely if you only had the one controller, but wanted to play a two player game that expects two controllers, you could take turns
This is weirdly relaxing. If you have a weird dream and watch this on your phone everything is instantly less creepy for some reason.
Hi, I'm from the 80s.
What do you mean watch on your phone?
Do you have a tiny 20 inch CRT, also called a television, strapped on your telephone receiver?
@@bobbobson110 in the 80s, that was an ancient idea from 40s "Dick Tracy" comics. Don't get me started about Star Trek communicators!
I had a dream recently where I've visited Ashens. Very weird, as I've never been to England, let alone Norwich.
@@JeanMarceaux I thought he lived in London
@@tor112233 never did, AFAIK.
Actually, the Genesis and 2600 used the exact same cords. In fact, you can use a Genesis controller on an Atari.
And vice versa, if you wanted to.
That's a great way to destroy the controller port of your sega and or 2600.
They might have used the same cords, but they didn't use the same pin-out.
@@Mostlyharmless1985 it shouldn't hurt the mega drive because that's already designed to take master system controllers and games. but yes not usually a good idea to plug mega drive pads into other things, they work quite differently to enable more buttons over the same pins.
@@Mostlyharmless1985 really? It's a relatively low power, low voltage electric signal. I get that they wouldn't connect, but for the soft plastic Atari joystick connector, I can't imagine much physical damage. It's fairly obvious the OP wasn't literally talking about the "cords". Are you sure it's not something your older brother told you so you'd leave his game system alone?
@@googleboughtmee do the pins get broken? I only know about the Atari, but the adapter at the end of the cord is soft plastic, almost like rubber. The pins in the unit are fairly strong, they take quite a beating during normal use. If the physical pin positions didn't match up to an Atari joystick, it simply won't fit into the space, the rubbery connector would get a little mark at most. Never heard of pins actually breaking on an Atari. Ever.
19:30
Switching between player 1 and player 2 would be useful in the atari 2600's Indiana Jones...
Timeward It really would wouldn't it.
The Commodore 64 had no standard main joystick port for single player games, some games used port 1 and some used port 2. This meant you had to switch the ports between different games. Port-switchers were a thing back then to solve this issue.
I agree
@@retrotasticular1642 i assume the switches on the joystick just change the a or b buttons? So the joystick itself would always be on the player 1 side. Though in Commando you could plug in a second joystick and use the fire button on that to throw grenades instead of the space bar so in that case the joystick would be absolutely brilliant
@@waldevv That makes very little sense to me. That would be way less useful than switching joystick ports.
15:53 the way he said "hold" sent shivers down my spine
3:14
You actually can plug a Sega Master system controller into an Atari, and it will work. I don't think it works the other way (again, one button and joystick for the Atari).
You'd think it'd work on a game like Sonic, which only really has one button--which I always thought was weird for the flagship game.
Anything with a DB9 plug can be used with most computers 8 bit and 16 bit all saga consoles up to the Dreamcast or Saturn, Atari 2600 and 7800, Maybe an NES?
Ethan Ly Definitely not the NES, as it used a weird proprietary plug (3dreferenceimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/NES-plug-prongs.png)
As for the others, you also have to deal with the wiring being different. I know that pluging in an Atari plug into an Apple II's joystick port didn't work--I tried that back in grade school.
Thanks
I once tried to plug a 6-button Genesis controller into an Atari 2600 and play Space Invaders. None of the buttons worked for shooting.
dark souls with 2 buttons on an un responcive controler: challenge accepted
Or that bloke that beat Smash Brothers Ultimate with that fishing rod controller.
The Konix speed king and Gravis MkVI were for the Apple II which used an analogue input but still often utilized a 9 pin connector (early Apple IIs never had a joystick port but the later Apple IIe did)
I believe the ability of switching between Player 1 and Player 2 was for games like Track & Field, where you took turns instead of going simultaneously.
The Gravis mk6 was analogue. My brother had one for PC and played many hours of various Wing Commander games on it.
Yeah, the pc one was, but it was nonsensically also released as the 9-pin digital variant..
As others have pointed out, the Gravis was an analog joystick, and that travel adjustment it has actually made it one of the best. Longer travel = finer, more precise control, shorter travel = quicker control. And the buttons do actually all do different things. One of the best analog joysticks ever made in my opinion.
I've watched this video almost yearly since it came out and it's still entrancing.
"Speedking" was the most awesome joystick (with micro switches) you could feel the quality click every time, whereas all the other sticks you would waggle, gave off a creaky squeak. It wouldn't diminish over the years either, never broke. Everyone would fight over it when it came down to who'd get what stick for a round of Summer Olympiad or Hired Guns. Two games so many years apart, testament to the quality of that stick. Everything else, joystick wise, died around it. Oh god how I loved that stick.
The bug had nice clicks but the main stick was just a little too small for my hands. Comparing it to the speed king. I needed that little ball on the top. I think the bug broke.
Hear, hear! I never saw a bug in my neck of the woods, but my Speedking was by far the longest lived of my joysticks. The actual microswitched Speedking, as opposed to the analogue model shown, had a collar around the bottom of the stick, which sat flush with the top surface of the base (i.e. there was no recess in the surface). It outlasted and out-performed (in my freakishly small hands) any other high quality joystick I owned.
I so loved my Cheetah Bug; great for Amiga shmups. Probably set me on my journey to being obsessed with traditional arcade sticks and modding them. And if anybody fancies some game controller jargon pickiness; the term for the sticks movement distance off centre isn't 'travel', but actually 'throw'. 'Throw' is the total distance a stick can move off centre. 'Engage', meanwhile, refers to how far you can move the stick before the input registers... so a 'long-engage' stick means you can move the stick a fair bit before input engagements. I happen to prefer 'short-throw, short-engage' sticks for my style of shmup playing. I won't start defining stick 'resilience', 'resistance' and 'restriction', as this comment post of mine is already getting dull! Great video ashens!
One of those Ashens videos I keep coming back to year after year.
ASHENS. DO MORE VIDEOS LIKE THIS! The tone, the knowledgeability, the sincerity, and resulting humour; it’s a cut above all else you’ve done.
I suppose you could say I’ve been a ‘fan’ of your videos for over a decade now, and even met you at an Irish bar in London ~7 years ago; indeed we were about to go in for a selfie and then I found my phone was dead, my great regret in life.
Anyway, I digress, but what I want to say, is I know criticism sucks to hear sometimes and I don’t really mean it because you’re still on top of 99% of content out there, what you do is GOOD. However, having watched this I think even you don’t realise how much you fuel have left in the tank, this is GREAT, it’s some of the best content I’ve seen on TH-cam. I nearly didn’t click on it because, ok the title is niche and blends in with other things you’ve done, some of which tbh I now find samey and predictable as with the humour. Perhaps that’s why it hasn’t had the traction I think it deserves. But omfg, this is electric, you’re on fire. Do more like it for fucks sake man!!!!
I totally agree. This is Ashens at his best!
I actually have a version of the Konix Speed King for the NES, although it was licensed by Epyx and called the 500XJ. The big difference is that the NES one actually has a microswitched joystick. It's really not a bad joystick at all actually. Sure, it's a little awkward to use at first, but I've played with way worse controllers and joysticks in the past.
Many of those are familiar for me... But... Where's TAC-2? One of the most perfect joysticks at it's time. Really competitive with Competition Pro etc. And VERY durable. It was almost like a brick... Smash, bash it, throw it through the toilet wall and it was still working... Believe me... Have been throwing out some 2 pieces of Amiga disc boxes (about 380 discs or so) out of 2nd floor window.... WITH Tac-2, which was the only thing working perfectly after that... To be honest...
Stick was good but the buttons were quite bad.
Ashens really knows his Joysticks. Makes you wonder how old he is.
38 or 39.
OVER 9000!!! or 8000
skullkidzzz Hes about 99 pence
He'll be 38 on December 16
+skullkidzzz Old enough to know better.
And now the bart, grenade, and even the bloody tortoise now are in ashen’s possessions and are in the latest video
The quickshot 2 Turbo doesn't actually use micro switches, but actually just has springs with slightly different contacts underneath. A disappointment I just discovered opening up mine to try and fix it.
Also, the dual controller ports on the maverick are good for switching between Port1/2 for C64 games.. Seeing as devs could never make their damn minds up which one they wanted to stick with.
And since this review, got the maverick, to be disappointed to find the version I bought from ebay doesn't have microswitches.. Ordered it because of the sound of it from this video made me believe it was microswitched.. Still works well though, if a bit stiff.
Konix SpeedKing was a bloody excellent joystick! Ideal for playing whiles sat in a comfy chair rather than at a desk. Much better. The Bug was great too.
"20 to 30 years ago"
This was 9 years ago.
It felt like a month ago
I can’t tell if Cheetah’s “Characteristicks” are supposed to be “Characteristics” or “Character Is Stick”… probably the latter
How to make a joystick
1. Take a screwdriver and a piece of wood
2. Smash the screwdriver right through the piece of wood
3. Profit
instructions unclear, made a track ball out of the screwdriver
Instructions unclear, made a butt-plug out of the piece of wood. Screwdriver currently missing.
With the Superstar, I would be remiss if I didn't go "well ackshuallee..." and say that, from what I remember, arcade games with joysticks and buttons were not always with the joystick on the left; originally, they were on the right, with the mindset that you'd be using your more likely dominant right hand to control the action, but they decided to switch it around to make it more difficult for most of the righties to play and milk more quarters out of them, and it ended up sticking as the standard as players began adjusting their play style accordingly.
i absolutely love the Alien 3 one. my heart aches for it.
I love it too, but it looks more like the Alien from the first film with the exception of the brownish coloring. The one from Alien 3 was on all fours but I guess it wouldn't be practical for a joystick design. Either way I'm gonna try to get my hands on one.
+orhowilearnedtostopworrying me too. The boxed one is 132 American dollars so i suppose I'll have to save up if I want that one.
No one ever thought of the Wiiremote & Nunchuck two handed style in those days? Would have been perfect! Thumbstick in one hand and the fire button in the other. I could have made a million if I came up with that idea when I was 5.
But was the technology accessible to them at the time? But no I get you idea and it's a rather good one.
+Ethan “2buddy97” It needn't be wireless tech like the Wiimote, just a wire from the stick module to the button module and then the cable with the pinout connector. Not all Wii games used the Wiimote / Nunchuck combination with motion interaction. There's much to be said about the simple dividing of the gamepad in to two. The best example I found was Xenoblade on Wii... I recommend you try 30 minutes with Wiimote + Nunchuck if you have the opportunity ... the control scheme is so comfortable and effortless it almost feels like mind control.
The infrared receiver technology/decoder chips wasn't fast enough for gaming
The QuickShot 2 looks very much like one I had, except mine didn't say Spectravideo on it, maybe it was some generic clone or something. And I do also remember having a something similar but with microswitches, although in my experience the microswitch joysticks didn't last as long as the regular ones. The Speed King looks a lot like the Epyx (yes, same Epyx that did Summer Games, Winter Games, California Games, etc.) 500XJ that I badly wanted as a kid but never got, except it didn't look (or presumably feel) like it was supposed to be analog. Finally, I had a Gravis one that looks similar to the one you showed, but it was an analog version for a PC.
Why are there so many variants of joysticks when I have one attached to my body?
+ADRENELINEDUDE lol
WTF
Look up the "joy-dick"...
SgtPiggie If he plugs the cord in the right hole it probably could
Because alot of people don't have the microscopic hands required to control yours.
I think the Maverick had a Player 1/ Player 2 switch because some games would use joystick port 1 and some would use joystick port 2, so they put a switch to switch ports instead of unplugging the controller and swapping them
I had that Quick Shot for the NES. I used to use the player 1/2 switch to cheat on games like NARC. When you ran out of lives, you hit start for player 2 and continued on from where you died. 🙂My brother had one of the Gravis MK6 for his old 286 computer, and I never knew about that switch for adjusting the throw of the joystick.
I had one of thoseTerminator handgrenade joysticks.. I used it a lot, as it looked cool as shit (I was 6 years old). It was rather painful to use that tiny stick for prolonged periods of time, however.
A lot of people swore by it though, claiming it was the best Joystick ever made.
You could take out the split, which would make the handle pop off, revealing the button underneath. This happened a lot, while waiting for some game to load.
If I remember correctly, they were actually made in Denmark by SuperSoft.. So might be slightly easier to find one here. I'll have a look ;x
EDIT: Managed to find one.. Brand new in box though, so £90. Hells no.
I can imagine a kid who just bought that back in the day comming out of the shop where he bought it and everyone just starts running away screaming because they think he's some crazy terrorist kid suicide bomber.
+Sofa Anders Got one of those too. Yes, you can use it without the lever but it doesn't look anywhere as nice. I actually took mine apart and cleaned it, it has a surprisingly good build quality. 5 high-quality microswitches and rubber bushing to provide resistance, and a small piece of iron or lead pipe inside to give it its characteristic weight. High quality materials and all the parts fit together beautifully and snugly. These babies were made to last forever.
+Niko The Bosnian Back then all the kids would have gathered around him and wanted to have a look at that cool joystick. In those times people didn't live in fear.
*****
Well,depends where you lived I guess,and I was trying to make a joke,really.
Terminator (the grenade one) is great! I have one, and lovingly fixed and refurbished it to its former glory. I really like it.
Well, these joysticks worked well for many Amiga games, but I played *A LOT* of the pinball games like Dreams, Fantasies and Illusions, and those were impossible to play with these joysticks. Also many games just had a lot more controls, like Cannon Fodder and all of the Lemmings games, which I also played *a lot* but not as much. Turrican was great though.
Ashens got the grenade and tortoise! Yeiiii
Ooooo. Yesterday, I dusted of my A500 and gave it a whirl. Had to open the whole thing and re-seat the chips. But, one of my joysticks had the two connectors, black and gray. I, of course, plugged them both in. Two players hotseat! (Hot joystick?) Didn't work too well, hope I didn't fry anything. Not that it would matter. Mice didn't work, most of my sticks didn't work, 1MB extended memory was iffy, extra disk drive wasn't working, and 80% of the games didn't function. Near 30 year old tech does that. Good times. Interestingly enough, Flashback has an option for 2 button controller. I seem to recall you could get Sega controllers to work as two button controllers, with an adapter. Edit: Cruiser was the aforementioned joystick with two connectors. Black and transparent. Also got the zipstick. And a nagging feeling I've written this exact same tirade before.
Wow I had a clear compotition pro joystick 2nd hand that I repaired. I had completely forgotten about it!
Heeeey I had that Gravis stick. Endless hours of Jetfighter II... good memories.
David Hoffnung i played alot of flight simulator
+David Hoffnung I had one too. Should note that it was an analogue stick and not digital, as he seemed to think. Worked pretty well for those purposes.
The amount of Quickshot 2 joysticks I destroyed on Daley Thompson’s Decathlon was unreal!
I loved the speed king but I had the micro switched one. Loved it and it was so comfortable and easy to use.
Commodore Amiga had the best and most durable joystick ever made by humans. It was called Pacman Joystick, it was a Greek product and its manufacturing standards were exactly the same as the coin-op machines joysticks.
The two-player switchable Joystick is actually quite clever! You only need to buy one joystick, and no need to move the control wires on the console. You can just switch the controller around.
The Amiga did support the Sega 2nd button actually, and some games (like Battle Squadron for instance) did make use of it.
Also missing from this roundup is the fantastic Wico leaf-contact joystick, that thing was indestructible, it survived every other joystick that i destroyed yes even the Konix Navigator (which was ok, apart from the front button digging in my finger after a while..).
Press my buttons and work my joystick~
What cheat code is that?
Keurgui1
All I know is it gets a 1Up.
Roxie ღ hahaha xD made my day
Cass sei
:D
Is this a sexual innuendo?
I always thought that the most famous joystick was the one for the Atari 2600
He did say he was talking about the bridge between 8-bit and 16-bit games. The 2600 was WAY before then.
There was also a speedking 2, which wasn’t just a repurposed analog stick.
It was microswitched and had very little travel. It was actually a great stick and I replaced mine a couple of times when it broke.
Later Commodore sticks ( including a revised speedking 2) had 2 distinct buttons. The short lived C64GS was supposed to use 2 buttons, but very few games did, because they also wanted to sell the cartridges to normal C64 owners. The few games that did use 2 buttons had the option to play with only one button.
Konix Speedking. Totally AWESOME piece of gear. (Micro switch version). Battered it to death for years and it was still going strong when Amiga USA crashed (cheers ya bastrds) and took Amiga UK down with it.
can confirm, the six button Sega megadrive controller used to work with my old Amiga 500+, which my dear old mum gave away FOR NOTHING DESPITE IT HAVING A PERFECTLY WORKING POWER PACK, YOU KNOW, THE FIRST THING THAT WOULD GO ON ALL AMIGA COMPUTERS. THANKS MUM.
that six button controller was a wonderful little controller, it felt like Sega built it around my hands, and was a massive improvement over the standard three button effort, which always felt too big.
ahhh, nostalgings...
I once saw a used NES controller that was basically the Konix Speed King, but instead of the stupid stick, it had a smaller, red version of the buttplug looking thing from the Navigator.
16:47 Am I the only one that laughs uncontrolibly when he says "Ergodonomic"?
This word needs to be voted into the dictionary straight away! Fits into your hand, air passes over it easily.
saint4God :D
14:02 "It's Giger - not Geiger! Every kid knows that!" says Dan
I grew up in the 16-bit era and I did have a really good flight-stick joystick with the fire button on the top. It felt like a proper gear-stick and it was easy on my hypermobile wrists without being too stiff. (That's what she said...) I must have been lucky because I have large hands for a woman and absolutely hate gyroscopic and motion controls because my wrists are too flappy for accuracy. So something with a bit of heft to it but moving smoothly was my particular need and the fire button was made useful by my flexible thumbs.
It's very much horses for courses but I think they'd perfected the controls by the time I got it, probably around 1992/93. When I got back into action gaming a few years ago I actually started looking for a joystick rather than a normal controller, and I'm very sad that the A500 mini comes with a controller rather than a joystick. But I do like analogue sticks a lot. They're the best of both worlds -- movement is easy without being too easy.
You are lucky. My device has 3 buttons and one huge one.
One is the See Tabs, one is the Home Button and one is the back button. The huge button is a screen which you can have millions of buttons on. My device is a Samsung Phone :D
My controller doesn't have that many buttons. It only has 492.
Mine has 962.
Mine has 1
+Panthxr Your such a dinosaur.
+Dj_Kirby mine only has a joystick, no buttons.
+Dj_Kirby lol
Oh that was excellent.
Ann Summers are redoing the autumn / spring range.
Without suction pads
I'm pretty sure the "Gravis Mark 6" was analogue, a friend of mine had the PC version of it and we used it to play Wing Commander 2 (or was it Privateer?) Ah, good times...
I still have a Gravis Analog Pro, with the 15 pin contact. I bought it for my Amiga 500, with a 15 to 9 pin adapter you had an analog controller for the few games that supported it on the Amiga :) I think it was mostly for Gunship 2000 and Formula One Grand Prix I bought it. And perhaps F/A-18 Interceptor, I think that game also had analog support....
The side switches were function selectors for the buttons.
Actually, the controller that splits between player 1 and 2 would be useful. o3o Especially if you were playing Super Mario or something on the NES where player 1 and 2 HAD to have seperate controllers, this way you could just pass one back and forth.
Just got my Quickshot II Turbo in the mail today. Somebody imported it from the UK into the US because I bought it from a chap in Ohio. Haven’t tried it on my VIC 20 yet but it definitely is an improvement over the Kraft joystick I’ve been using. It’s almost like that Konix hand held joystick, but slightly less travel. Would you play Jeff Minter’s Aggressor with something that makes you feel like your piloting a toy helicopter?
I miss these days..... :-(
Where is the crappy Atari 2600 one?
Review the mouse-turtle-thingy!!!! Please!
So, game controllers now apparently have 497 buttons, but only one DPad.
I had an Amiga when I was a teen. I had a few joysticks. but I prefered Microswitch ones
Still got my Master System 2
Me too, Its up in my attic somewhere, Ive actually a shit load of games ive never even played, I was working in an empty house quite a few years back and i found a bag of old games cartridges, i can't remember what they are though, i must bring it down someday and have a look at them
holy shit, watching this video i suddenly realized my Logitech 3D joystick has microswitches in the little joystick on top of the joystick. How things have changed..
Back in elementary school, I had a Logitech joystick with roostats. Amazing quality, this brand has never let me down.
Used to have to play cross-handed using the Maverick, if you look back you´ll see it is the only joystick you held the stick with your left hand. Hated that. Like playing chopsticks on the piano.
I had a Cheater 125+ and I remember using it for my Atari 2600 and my Spectrum but I can't remember if it worked on my Master System.