There should be zero debate about the correct pronunciation of Wico. They paid for a real teevee commercial and everything. ruclips.net/video/52E-9Bn4f-A/видео.html
@@8_Bit I'm a bit late to the party but it would be interesting to see if the Wico trackball actually provides a signal to the paddle inputs. That could also explain why you had sound problems since those inputs are registers on the SID chip. I'm tempted to buy one and have a look, if it indeed is capable of providing paddle inputs this could be made into an interesting controller.
To answer my own question, i bought a Wico trackball off ebay and sadly no, it doesn't use the paddle inputs, just the standard joystick inputs. Now i wonder if one could alter the ROM inside the trackball. It must have better resolution from those wheel sensors, it's a shame they didn't do more with those. Going to dump the ROM and see what's in there.
The Wico box is wrong, they mean an Odyssey 2 not an Odyssey, what use would a trackball be for a Pong system? It is a well-made piece of kit though, leaf switches, metal rollers, optos, micro-controller - impressive.
The Cadillac of Trakballs is definitely the one Atari itself made. It had 2 modes - Joystick and Trakball. What's the difference? Joystick mode was digital direction only. Trakball mode was more like a mouse, direction and speed. This mode was usable in the Missile Command cartridge for the Atari 8-bit computers. You just had to type CTRL-T to use it. I bought an Accuball trakball controller but it suffered from reverse sensing when spun too fast due to the infrared method to detect movement. That Roklan controller design was repeated years later for an NES controller. Centipede and Millipede cartridges on the 2600 are very playable with an Atari Trakball. 😊
That second controller has nothing to do with a "track ball". What a scam. Also, I make better pcbs in my shed for some throwaway Sunday project 😶🤣 It truly was the wild wild West back then.
0:40 It's a joystick without a stick - a "Joy"? That doesn't seem like a viable controller. The graphic design is similar to the classic Atari joystick. CMD made a trackball controller that emulated the mouse, fairly well. It also had a real-time clock that could be read with a special protocol. 8:06 The roller kind of makes its own "sound effect". 10:35 Maybe it would work better if they put a vertical stick in the middle… 13:55 In case your pool table is missing its "1" ball… 17:50 Very similar to an Atari joystick on the inside, too. I think somebody cheated off somebody else's test paper… 21:36 This technique is especially important when driving screws into plastic.
CMD also made a mouse with a built in RTC and there was a plugin for GEOS. But who cared for the correct time on a C64 anyway? I and most people I know had an old radio alarm clock on their desk to listen to the radio while loading stuff.
For small hairline cracks, you can also use the stuff meant to fix rear window defroster wires. Works great and very easy to apply using sticky tape (not masking tape which soaks it up). You can buy/order it in most auto part shops.
Oh, man the Wico guts bring back memories. When I was a kid I tried converting a PC mouse to work with my C64. I created 74-series logic to turn each pulse from the IR detectors into a single pulse in the appropriate direction on the C64 joystick port. I didn't know it was called "quadrature" until school years later, so it took some sleuthing to discover the phase difference from the IR detectors and turn that into direction pulses. I was pretty proud of myself, even though it never worked. Moving the mouse an inch gave dozens of pulses, much faster than the C64 read them, so movement was super erratic. Later I learned that the C64 mouse actually converted the pulses into *analog* signals for the paddle inputs, which I'd never even considered. D'oh!
Thank you for showing these two pieces of "oddware"! I think, as the saying goes, they were the solution to a problem that doesn't exist, since joysticks were already adequate for most of the C64 and Atari games.
Those bearings actually require grease, not oil. But it's not like you're maintaining the main drive axle in a cruise ship or turbine shafts in a nuclear plant.
Most oils cause a chemical reaction with plastic. The plastic turns harder, more brittle and then the surface turns into dust. So when in doubt, use grease. Ballistol is easy on rubber and plastics so you can use it for normal stuff but I wouldn't use it on any plastic which is very old and/or is supposed to last for a very long time. On the other hand, Ballistol can be dissolved in water so humidity will water it down over time.
@@CC-ke5np This was more in general. For ball bearings grease is usually preferred. The actual problem is that the manufacturer used the wrong type of bearing anyway - this is a prime use case for dry-running bushings.
@@CC-ke5np Btw. to get something like this running again, I'd just use silicone oil (or silicone grease). That doesn't react with rubber or other plastics at all.
@@graealex Correct! Unfortunately, not everybody is willing to buy many different items so it is good to know a few “general purpose” ones. For oils: - WD 40 as water repellent, bad for lubrication of fast moving parts and damages rubber/plastic - ideal for locks and the like - Ballistol for good lubrication and cleaning, no immediate effect on plastics and rubber but “draws water” over time - Sewing machine oil for everything else And for plastic and rubber, grease is always better but collects dirt. In the good old days, you could buy “dialler grease” (don’t know the English term, in German, it is “Wählerfett”). This stuff was used for the mechanical parts of telephone branch exchanges. It is a very good grease, cleans, lubricates and even preserves rubber and plastics. Sadly, it is somewhat toxic and not made any more. Nowadays, you need to use vaseline (petroleum jelly) as a substitute but you need to replace it much more often.
Yes, I"m this far behind on videos and I am trying to catch up. More than a few years ago I got fed up with the icky coloured ball in my Wico Command Control and purchased a pristine white billiard ball of the same size. It looked very nice and worked perfectly. I've got another Command Control here and I think this time I'll go for a red billiard ball to maintain the colour scheme. If you want me to send you one, let me know. :)
I wanted a track ball but eventually settled on a sun pad, it was a joystick without a joystick. It had a touch pad with membrane switches. Went thru about three of them in the life of my Commodores.
Wico's US4493992A patent explains how it works in more detail. This one device can control different types of digital and analog inputs depend on how it is hooked up. The processor samples the optical wheels to derive a speed and direction and track a virtual X-Y position internally. For digital inputs, the processor outputs PWM with duty cycles proportional to the speed, on lines selected by the direction. For analog inputs, it uses a pair of resistor ladders to form DACs which control the X and Y axis voltages and relay the internal virtual position. It's pretty clever. This patent is cited by dozens of later patents including mouse patents by Amiga/Commodore, Logitech, and IBM.
From their figure 2, it looks like they are not using pulse width modulation but fixed pulses with a 5 ms duration instead, and decreasing the space between them as trackball speed increases. This way they are avoiding alias effects, where interference between joystick polling and a fixed PWM frequency would happen. Most US games poll at 60 Hz but in Europe, game loops will run at 50 Hz. By not using a fixed PWM frequency, the WICO trackball should work with PAL computers, too.
I still have the Wico version for my Atari 2600 since I was a kid, but the thing was *huge!* I suspected it wasn’t truly analog, though I mostly used it for games like Centipede and Missile Command, where it made sense to emulate the arcade.
I find it fascinating that so few people knew the screw "trick" until Fran mentioned it in a video. It's the same thing you do in the kitchen to not cross-thread lids.
My initial reaction, was, "well, duh, everyone knows that." But I don't recall anyone ever teaching me that. So I must have picked it up in the kitchen, and applied it without thinking to screws. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I had a Wico track ball a long time ago that I converted to PC mouse. I used the logic board from a ball mouse wired to the Wico sensors. I managed to correct the directions but L&R movements were a different speed than U&D for some reason.
So how does it work? Does it make some sort of PWM output of the joystick directions? I'd like to see waveforms, and if possible, disassembly of the code in the uC.
@@willyarma_uk I didn't even know this thing worked like that... I have one in my closet I'm pretty sure. I never had the box to tell me otherwise, I thought it only worked with specific software.
I never knew the Wico trackball didn't have a switch like the Atari trackballs to toggle between joystick emulation and trackball. The 2600 trackball wouldn't work on the Atari ST, but could be converted to work,m which also meant it could be modified to work with the Amiga.
Back in 86 or 87 I got 1 that looked like the wico but it wasn't. Think it was $5 or so at the pickering flea market. Difference was instead of the wheel that interacted with the optical sensors like a mouse It had magnets on each roller that would trigger reed switches. Wasn't nearly as accurate so I ended up not using it much. It didn't have the micro controller either, the interfacing was a lot more simplistic. The roklans internals are functionally identical to the Atari CX40 joystick. BTW, don't worry about your repair attempt it works n nobodies gonna be looking at it again probly.
I had the Quickshot Joyball, it was a much larger ball that you "rocked" to activate switches. It had some really big fire buttons too that were fun to blast away with, but the size made the wrist ache after playing for a short while. I eventually took it apart and used the microswitches to repair another joystick.
Back in the day, I attempted to build something along the lines of the Un-Roller Controller to work with GEOS out of broken joystick parts. (Didn't work too well, mostly because of unsuitable materials, but also because of obvious design issues.) - And I had no idea, I violated patents! ;-)
I remember a wealthy friend buying Quick Shot IX and showing us his new "trackball". Once I realized it was just an overpriced uncomfortable joystick I was little confused. But it allowed me to beat him at Wizard of Wor Deathmatch. He wasn't very happy.
The Wico doesn't seem like much of an advantage over a joystick in most situations. For games which were designed to use a trackball (very few at that time) or the paddle controllers it would be great I imagine.
If that Wico trackball uses the same size ball as the Atari trackball, it is just a pool ball (cue, in this case). I replaced my Atari trackball... ball... with an 8-ball, which gave it a little more character. I don't remember the specifics of the mod, but I replaced the switches in my Atari trackball with micro-switches (snap-action), then used it as a mouse on my Atari 520STFM. Thanks for bringing back the good old memories!
Just looked up 6400 W. Gross Point Road in Niles, IL. It is now Chade Fashions Inc that do hair extensions and hair pieces. Never liked the Wico Command Control (the bat handle joystick one) myself, found it too unwieldly in size and preferred micro switch over leaf switch joysticks.
That un-roller controller is a piece of crap inside. The WICO is impressive with a micro controller. Optomechanical too. Did you try to play it upside down like a mouse? Likely everything would be reversed but still cool. Fire up GEOS and use 1350 mouse driver.
Wico! I remember the catalog my HS had around for some reason. To pin down the era of this, it had parts for Asteroids, Star Castle, and lots of jukeboxes, among other things.
Around 1984 my father bought a Wico Command Control trackball for the TI-99/4A and what was really strange about that was this version came with an AC adapter. I really couldn't understand why seeing as no other controllers regardless of computer needed one. It would be as silly as if the TI joysticks came with an AC adapter. We did have Centipede for the TI and since the original arcade platform used trackball, it made sense to play the game on trackball on the TI.
The QuickShot IX Joyball was similar to the Un-Roller, except the dome was much bigger, and the buttons were like tape deck controls. I only saw it in a store once, and it felt absolutely horrible.
I remember both of those... but I actually had the Atari 2600 track ball unit. It was actually useful for GEOS on the C64 (at least until I got that little suncom joystick thing that attached to the keyboard)
I think I had the Roklan, or something equivalently janky. It was definitely not used much compared to the other joysticks we had. The concept is not inherently terrible, though, there is an ergonomic keyboard design that uses two shaped blobs with 8-way movement called the Orbitouch. LTT did a review of it a while back and deemed it good, albeit more limited than a regular keyboard in certain ways.
If it had a standard 8-way joystick input, it would _not_ add the feature "able to control speed of on-screen objects". The Apple II, on the other hand, had an analog joystick standard, but they also had analog joysticks so it would not be the "first time" such a feature was available.
I have the Quickshot equivalent to the Roklan, more of a novelty than a real solution to game control, I always thought. I guess it could be useful if you couldn't operate a conventional controller, though. Side note: shame that Commodore didn't include the Galaxian round in Gorf.
@@8_Bit And in a few years, they'll probably be able to fit a functional C64 emulator inside it. The connectors will take up more room than the PCB. :)
I converted a roller ball to my vic20 but found hard to find software that use(paddel). I did write some drawing software. Also made a light pen if I remember could only use on port one I found it recently did think about testing to see if it still works but would have to write some software for the vic20 again. Any ideas of software to test both these again either for vic20 or C64?
@@theannoyedmrfloyd3998 Hm, the Apple II joystick standard is a descendant of paddles, so maybe ? (I mention this because the first of these things says it has a Apple II version ...) I remember playing Arkanoid with a joystick ... that was weird. :)
I had a wico trackball just for playing Operation Wolf on the c64. It worked great for that port! My brother and I used sharpie markers to decorate the ball... we thought that it looked cool.
I have an Atari trackball (the one with the round buttons, not the triangular ones). I followed an article in a magazine and did a mod on it so that it would function as an Amiga mouse. I added two more buttons and added switches to the underside so that I could switch back to its original configuration and still use it as a joystick, or even an Atari trackball. It worked fairly well. I think the only thing I ever found to use trackball mode with was a magazine Missile Command clone called Red Alert. I read the article and didn't see any mention of it supporting anything other than a joystick, so maybe I had a modified copy. I never thought to try it on anything that supported a Commodore mouse, like Arkanoid II.
I had an Atari trackball for my 800 - it had a switch that allowed you to swap between trackball and joystick emulation modes, but joystick emulation was kind of awkward and Missile Command was the only game I owned that worked in trackball mode so it never saw a lot of use.
I wonder if the ball from the wico joystick is a reused snooker ball? I think they are made from phenolic and the size might be about right size (they are slightly smaller than billiard balls) and they even come in yellow!
They could add a joystick emul mode where roller speed translates to multiple movements just like auto fire. Then games could support it (without the analog paddle mode)
i wonder if you were to weigh down the bottom half of the Un-Roller if that would help the feel. Maybe glue in some metal weights and/or pour in some resin? It may not be worth it to you.
The no-roller would drive me to distraction with the noise it made although it did seem to be a good controller in other respects. Great engineering on that trackball! Thanks for the video and can't wait till the next one!
Wico was also known for designing and manufacturing all kinds of arcade games controllers as well as controllers for home video systems. As far as the Wico trackball that is actually a cue ball. Wico was also a manufacturer and distributor of billiard supplies. When Centipede came out there everyone loved the OEM trackball concept but it was not reliable. Wico improved its design and sold it as a replacement and eventually to the manufacturer of the game. You did pronounce the name correctly in your video. Wico was a family owned company. The "Wi" in Wico stood for the family name "Wiczer" and the (co) for "Company". My father and I worked there for many years.
I've never understood the fascination with trackballs. 10 minutes with a trackball and it feels like my forearm is on fire. 20 minutes and I need to rest my arm for an hour to be able to use it again.
Yes, a more refined version of it could be very good for accessibility; as implemented it needs a fair bit of downward force that would limit how many could make use of it.
14:14 Those are bearings on either end, presumably to make them roll better! Quite a nice thought, they didn't have to give you those, nor a microswitch, nor a quality trackball. But they did!
I had an actual Atari trackball back in the day for my C64. It was big and heavy. Matched the later Atari 8-Bit computer colors. Loved using it to play Crystal Castles port.
i believe i might have one wico as well.. i do have another one that looks like a trackball but it's actually more like the rokian one.. in commodore browns , it looks like half a ball is screw onto a board which holds two cassette tape style buttons.. quit unusual to use
Very nice! I would like to see how the track ball works with a game like Centipede, something that used a track ball in the arcade...I guess I have to buy one now (perhaps the TRS-80 version 🤔)!
I could see wanting this for arcade games like Missile Command that had a trackball. Not sure I'd want it for something designed for a joystick. I do enjoy your laugh when you find joy in things. 21:00 a bodge wire would probably work better, but if it's working right now you might as well leave it
A trackball was a decent, if not perfect, substitute for a paddle in Breakout style games. I remember having a small game for the C64 called Atomic Handball that worked quite well with a trackball.
There was no technical reason that they couldn't have had at least 3 buttons (the normal one and two more on the paddle lines). It's only because of traditional that they continued to only use one button. No hardware manufacturers wanted to make a 2-3-button joystick if there was no software for it, and most software companies didn't want to write games to use a 2-3 button joystick if most people didn't have one. Catch-22. Actually, there's no reason that even the Atari 2600 couldn't have used the same design to support a 3-button joystick.
Yeah, it's unfortunate that Commodore finally decided to push a 2-button joystick around 1990 with the C64GS games console, but that was 1) way too late 2) the console very poorly 3) the joystick itself was horrible. The only good thing is that we do have a bit of a standard now, and some more recent games use it, and some other older games have been hacked to support it as well.
@@8_Bit Back in 1983, CBS Electronics tried to establish a two-button standard with their Booster Grip accessory that was included with Omega Race for the Atari 2600. Unfortunately, their idea was pretty flawed. It only fit on standard Atari joysticks, the handle itself swiveled on the joystick and you had to plug the joystick into it, then plug that into the console. They had plans to use it for their game Wings, but that never got released, and then the video game market crashed. To be honest, I'm kind of torn about the number of buttons on a joystick. While I think there are many games that absolutely would benefit from a second button, there are many more games that over-complicate their controls by using multiple buttons. Take that version of Omega Race as an example; Having a button dedicated to Thrust replicates the arcade, but do you really need it? Personally, I'd rather just push forward on the stick. I played the standard Amiga version of Benefactor and I don't recall having any trouble pulling off the moves, yet the CD32 port uses three buttons to initiate the various moves. To be honest, I kept pressing the wrong button most of the time. Sometimes when designing a game for a system with multiple buttons on the controller, the designers will feel an obligation to use all of the buttons for something, regardless of whether that simplifies or complicates the game. Take the original Resident Evil/Dino Crisis games. Why are there separate buttons for aiming a weapon and firing it? Why not one button to raise the weapon and fire it? It's not like "aiming" it in the semi-3D display really helps that much. You're still just turning in the general direction of the enemy. Imagine a game like Ghostbusters on the C64. If that had been made for a system like the PS1 first, you would use L1/R1 to place your guys at each location, L2/R2 to fire each one's streams. L1/R1 to select which character you wanted to move, X to fire the trap. Triangle to turn the Image Intensifier on/off. O to abort that capture. While driving, it would use X for accelerate, Square for brake, O to activate the vacuum. Triangle to sound your horn, L1/R1 to change lanes, etc.
I've actually got one of those Booster Grips from Omega Race and have a planned video called "The One Button Problem" or something like that, on my long list of video ideas. I agree that many games are totally fine with just the one button and it does seem that many game developers feel they need to use every available button on the controller whether it serves the game or not.
@@8_Bit A while back I tried out the game Joe Gunn Gold for the C64. Left/right walks in those directions, up/down climb/descend ladders. Pressing the button and pushing to the side makes him jump and/or climb up a block if there's one in front of him. Down and the button searches whatever object he's in front of. Up and the button brings up the inventory which you can then scroll through with the button pressed and releasing it will try to use the selected item. It works pretty well and although there's no way to jump up and over enemies, I think that was a design choice rather than a limitation of the controls. They could have always made up/diagonal initiate a jump.
Fun to see these in action! All I can think of is how every C64 mouse had a joystick emulation mode if you booted whilst holding the right button. As someone who had mostly Atari/Suncom joysticks that broke too soon, this was a lifesaver -- even if it was very awkward to play a game with!
Also this completely unlocked a memory for me. Why was it that you would get junk characters at the BASIC prompt if you moved a standard C64 joystick in Port 1?
This old video of mine deals with that issue in the first few minutes I think. Basically, the keyboard shares some control lines with joystick port 1, and the keyboard code gets confused: ruclips.net/video/a8B-EJQu6i0/видео.html
Aw, it was awesome to see your trackball skills go from newbie to pro. I've never played games with the trackball but it fascinated me how you don't have to roll back. Like when you go right in the game and you really spinn the ball to the right you still go left again with just a push. Very good.
That's because when you roll the ball, the sensors just detect which direction(s) it's being rolled in and signal the console/computer that the "joystick" is being moved in that direction. A true trackball functions like an upside-down mouse. Although, the few arcade ones that I've played in my life, seem to have the sensitivity set quite low. You know how if the mouse speed is set too low, you move the mouse to the side, the pointer goes halfway across the screen, then you have to pick it up, physically move the mouse the other way and then move it again? All the arcade machines I've used a trackball on kind of felt like that. You roll your hand across the ball and the crosshair/gun/whatever moves half as far as you expected, then you have to move your hand back to the other side and roll it again. At least that's been my experience. I imagine with an emulator like MAME, you could set the sensitivity higher so that you could reach anywhere on the screen without taking your hand off the ball.
@@lurkerrekrul Oh, those low sensitive mice.. I know. Well, I wasn't pondering on the magic existence of the trackball and it just kept me awake every night because I just don't understand how they work. I do remember computer magazines back in the day introduced trackballs and used the very same term to describe them. "It's like a mouse upsidedown". Nah, call me an old fashioned romantic but I just like the idea that we do have trackballs.
![NOSFERATU - Official Trailer [HD] - Only In Theaters December 25](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nulvWqYUM8k/mqdefault.jpg)
There should be zero debate about the correct pronunciation of Wico. They paid for a real teevee commercial and everything. ruclips.net/video/52E-9Bn4f-A/видео.html
That's an amazing commercial! Wico rhymes with "sticko". I said something right for once!
All these years and that jingle is still stuck in my head every time I hear mention of Wico.
@@8_Bit
I'm a bit late to the party but it would be interesting to see if the Wico trackball actually provides a signal to the paddle inputs.
That could also explain why you had sound problems since those inputs are registers on the SID chip.
I'm tempted to buy one and have a look, if it indeed is capable of providing paddle inputs this could be made into an interesting controller.
To answer my own question, i bought a Wico trackball off ebay and sadly no, it doesn't use the paddle inputs, just the standard joystick inputs.
Now i wonder if one could alter the ROM inside the trackball.
It must have better resolution from those wheel sensors, it's a shame they didn't do more with those. Going to dump the ROM and see what's in there.
The Wico box is wrong, they mean an Odyssey 2 not an Odyssey, what use would a trackball be for a Pong system? It is a well-made piece of kit though, leaf switches, metal rollers, optos, micro-controller - impressive.
They meant G7000 😉
The Cadillac of Trakballs is definitely the one Atari itself made. It had 2 modes - Joystick and Trakball. What's the difference? Joystick mode was digital direction only. Trakball mode was more like a mouse, direction and speed. This mode was usable in the Missile Command cartridge for the Atari 8-bit computers. You just had to type CTRL-T to use it.
I bought an Accuball trakball controller but it suffered from reverse sensing when spun too fast due to the infrared method to detect movement.
That Roklan controller design was repeated years later for an NES controller.
Centipede and Millipede cartridges on the 2600 are very playable with an Atari Trakball. 😊
That second controller has nothing to do with a "track ball". What a scam. Also, I make better pcbs in my shed for some throwaway Sunday project 😶🤣 It truly was the wild wild West back then.
I think that's a bit part of why they called it the 'no-roller'!
How well does the trackball work with GEOS or e.g. Maniac Mansion?
0:40 It's a joystick without a stick - a "Joy"? That doesn't seem like a viable controller. The graphic design is similar to the classic Atari joystick.
CMD made a trackball controller that emulated the mouse, fairly well. It also had a real-time clock that could be read with a special protocol.
8:06 The roller kind of makes its own "sound effect".
10:35 Maybe it would work better if they put a vertical stick in the middle…
13:55 In case your pool table is missing its "1" ball…
17:50 Very similar to an Atari joystick on the inside, too. I think somebody cheated off somebody else's test paper…
21:36 This technique is especially important when driving screws into plastic.
CMD also made a mouse with a built in RTC and there was a plugin for GEOS.
But who cared for the correct time on a C64 anyway? I and most people I know had an old radio alarm clock on their desk to listen to the radio while loading stuff.
I think it should be called a joyball 🤣
Next time mask the traces off with painter's tape, then peel it up after. You'll look like a wizard with the carbon pen!
For small hairline cracks, you can also use the stuff meant to fix rear window defroster wires. Works great and very easy to apply using sticky tape (not masking tape which soaks it up). You can buy/order it in most auto part shops.
It's so much easier looking back judging these claims on the boxes. They're not not lies :)
I've never played Gorf before. Think I'll give it a go.
Oh, man the Wico guts bring back memories. When I was a kid I tried converting a PC mouse to work with my C64. I created 74-series logic to turn each pulse from the IR detectors into a single pulse in the appropriate direction on the C64 joystick port. I didn't know it was called "quadrature" until school years later, so it took some sleuthing to discover the phase difference from the IR detectors and turn that into direction pulses.
I was pretty proud of myself, even though it never worked. Moving the mouse an inch gave dozens of pulses, much faster than the C64 read them, so movement was super erratic.
Later I learned that the C64 mouse actually converted the pulses into *analog* signals for the paddle inputs, which I'd never even considered. D'oh!
r/therewasanattempt
At least you tried.
Thank you for showing these two pieces of "oddware"! I think, as the saying goes, they were the solution to a problem that doesn't exist, since joysticks were already adequate for most of the C64 and Atari games.
Just because most games are joystick doesn't mean I'd rather not be able to play centipede with a trackball or arkanoid with a spinner.
Those bearings actually require grease, not oil. But it's not like you're maintaining the main drive axle in a cruise ship or turbine shafts in a nuclear plant.
Most oils cause a chemical reaction with plastic. The plastic turns harder, more brittle and then the surface turns into dust.
So when in doubt, use grease.
Ballistol is easy on rubber and plastics so you can use it for normal stuff but I wouldn't use it on any plastic which is very old and/or is supposed to last for a very long time. On the other hand, Ballistol can be dissolved in water so humidity will water it down over time.
@@CC-ke5np This was more in general. For ball bearings grease is usually preferred.
The actual problem is that the manufacturer used the wrong type of bearing anyway - this is a prime use case for dry-running bushings.
@@CC-ke5np Btw. to get something like this running again, I'd just use silicone oil (or silicone grease). That doesn't react with rubber or other plastics at all.
@@graealex Correct!
Unfortunately, not everybody is willing to buy many different items so it is good to know a few “general purpose” ones.
For oils:
- WD 40 as water repellent, bad for lubrication of fast moving parts and damages rubber/plastic - ideal for locks and the like
- Ballistol for good lubrication and cleaning, no immediate effect on plastics and rubber but “draws water” over time
- Sewing machine oil for everything else
And for plastic and rubber, grease is always better but collects dirt.
In the good old days, you could buy “dialler grease” (don’t know the English term, in German, it is “Wählerfett”). This stuff was used for the mechanical parts of telephone branch exchanges. It is a very good grease, cleans, lubricates and even preserves rubber and plastics. Sadly, it is somewhat toxic and not made any more. Nowadays, you need to use vaseline (petroleum jelly) as a substitute but you need to replace it much more often.
@@CC-ke5np Petroleum jelly will mess with any and all plastic and rubber parts. I advised on silicone grease because of that exact reason.
I wonder how well these do in joystick-killers like the Activision Decathlon or Caveman Ugh-Lympics...
Yes, I"m this far behind on videos and I am trying to catch up.
More than a few years ago I got fed up with the icky coloured ball in my Wico Command Control and purchased a pristine white billiard ball of the same size. It looked very nice and worked perfectly. I've got another Command Control here and I think this time I'll go for a red billiard ball to maintain the colour scheme. If you want me to send you one, let me know. :)
I wanted a track ball but eventually settled on a sun pad, it was a joystick without a joystick. It had a touch pad with membrane switches. Went thru about three of them in the life of my Commodores.
Huh, the "Un-Roller" almost hit on the idea of a D-Pad
Wico's US4493992A patent explains how it works in more detail. This one device can control different types of digital and analog inputs depend on how it is hooked up. The processor samples the optical wheels to derive a speed and direction and track a virtual X-Y position internally. For digital inputs, the processor outputs PWM with duty cycles proportional to the speed, on lines selected by the direction. For analog inputs, it uses a pair of resistor ladders to form DACs which control the X and Y axis voltages and relay the internal virtual position. It's pretty clever. This patent is cited by dozens of later patents including mouse patents by Amiga/Commodore, Logitech, and IBM.
From their figure 2, it looks like they are not using pulse width modulation but fixed pulses with a 5 ms duration instead, and decreasing the space between them as trackball speed increases. This way they are avoiding alias effects, where interference between joystick polling and a fixed PWM frequency would happen. Most US games poll at 60 Hz but in Europe, game loops will run at 50 Hz. By not using a fixed PWM frequency, the WICO trackball should work with PAL computers, too.
You calling your repairs "bad", me remembering my joystick repairs with a kitchen knife, scotch tape, and my teeth.
I still have the Wico version for my Atari 2600 since I was a kid, but the thing was *huge!* I suspected it wasn’t truly analog, though I mostly used it for games like Centipede and Missile Command, where it made sense to emulate the arcade.
I find it fascinating that so few people knew the screw "trick" until Fran mentioned it in a video. It's the same thing you do in the kitchen to not cross-thread lids.
My initial reaction, was, "well, duh, everyone knows that." But I don't recall anyone ever teaching me that. So I must have picked it up in the kitchen, and applied it without thinking to screws.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Wico was the company back in the day.
I had a Wico track ball a long time ago that I converted to PC mouse. I used the logic board from a ball mouse wired to the Wico sensors. I managed to correct the directions but L&R movements were a different speed than U&D for some reason.
So how does it work? Does it make some sort of PWM output of the joystick directions? I'd like to see waveforms, and if possible, disassembly of the code in the uC.
I'd like to see the waveforms too. Its got to be PWM.
@@willyarma_uk I didn't even know this thing worked like that... I have one in my closet I'm pretty sure. I never had the box to tell me otherwise, I thought it only worked with specific software.
I never knew the Wico trackball didn't have a switch like the Atari trackballs to toggle between joystick emulation and trackball. The 2600 trackball wouldn't work on the Atari ST, but could be converted to work,m which also meant it could be modified to work with the Amiga.
You should of tried games like Marble Madness / Spin-dizzy and Bobby Bearing ? with the Track Ball
EMC
MJB
CBM
In this configuration, MJB is is just the exact 3 letters required to read EMC MJB CBM both horizontally and vertically
Lol, Atari and their d-pads fraudulently marketed as joysticks... and the even more expensive d-pads similarly marketed as "trackballs"....
Back in 86 or 87 I got 1 that looked like the wico but it wasn't. Think it was $5 or so at the pickering flea market. Difference was instead of the wheel that interacted with the optical sensors like a mouse It had magnets on each roller that would trigger reed switches. Wasn't nearly as accurate so I ended up not using it much. It didn't have the micro controller either, the interfacing was a lot more simplistic. The roklans internals are functionally identical to the Atari CX40 joystick. BTW, don't worry about your repair attempt it works n nobodies gonna be looking at it again probly.
I had the Quickshot Joyball, it was a much larger ball that you "rocked" to activate switches. It had some really big fire buttons too that were fun to blast away with, but the size made the wrist ache after playing for a short while. I eventually took it apart and used the microswitches to repair another joystick.
Yeah.. grey housing?
Back in the day, I attempted to build something along the lines of the Un-Roller Controller to work with GEOS out of broken joystick parts. (Didn't work too well, mostly because of unsuitable materials, but also because of obvious design issues.) - And I had no idea, I violated patents! ;-)
I remember a wealthy friend buying Quick Shot IX and showing us his new "trackball". Once I realized it was just an overpriced uncomfortable joystick I was little confused. But it allowed me to beat him at Wizard of Wor Deathmatch. He wasn't very happy.
The Wico doesn't seem like much of an advantage over a joystick in most situations. For games which were designed to use a trackball (very few at that time) or the paddle controllers it would be great I imagine.
If that Wico trackball uses the same size ball as the Atari trackball, it is just a pool ball (cue, in this case). I replaced my Atari trackball... ball... with an 8-ball, which gave it a little more character. I don't remember the specifics of the mod, but I replaced the switches in my Atari trackball with micro-switches (snap-action), then used it as a mouse on my Atari 520STFM. Thanks for bringing back the good old memories!
I got a paid of Rocklans. They came together I thought they were trackballs...I was fooled... 😒
Just looked up 6400 W. Gross Point Road in Niles, IL. It is now Chade Fashions Inc that do hair extensions and hair pieces. Never liked the Wico Command Control (the bat handle joystick one) myself, found it too unwieldly in size and preferred micro switch over leaf switch joysticks.
A version of this that works like a 1351-with compatible games-would've been cool in the '80s.
That un-roller controller is a piece of crap inside. The WICO is impressive with a micro controller. Optomechanical too. Did you try to play it upside down like a mouse? Likely everything would be reversed but still cool. Fire up GEOS and use 1350 mouse driver.
Wico! I remember the catalog my HS had around for some reason. To pin down the era of this, it had parts for Asteroids, Star Castle, and lots of jukeboxes, among other things.
Around 1984 my father bought a Wico Command Control trackball for the TI-99/4A and what was really strange about that was this version came with an AC adapter. I really couldn't understand why seeing as no other controllers regardless of computer needed one. It would be as silly as if the TI joysticks came with an AC adapter. We did have Centipede for the TI and since the original arcade platform used trackball, it made sense to play the game on trackball on the TI.
The QuickShot IX Joyball was similar to the Un-Roller, except the dome was much bigger, and the buttons were like tape deck controls. I only saw it in a store once, and it felt absolutely horrible.
I remember both of those... but I actually had the Atari 2600 track ball unit. It was actually useful for GEOS on the C64 (at least until I got that little suncom joystick thing that attached to the keyboard)
I think I had the Roklan, or something equivalently janky. It was definitely not used much compared to the other joysticks we had. The concept is not inherently terrible, though, there is an ergonomic keyboard design that uses two shaped blobs with 8-way movement called the Orbitouch. LTT did a review of it a while back and deemed it good, albeit more limited than a regular keyboard in certain ways.
If it had a standard 8-way joystick input, it would _not_ add the feature "able to control speed of on-screen objects".
The Apple II, on the other hand, had an analog joystick standard, but they also had analog joysticks so it would not be the "first time" such a feature was available.
I had a WICO The Boss joystick in the 80s.. it was solid but weird. The stick rotated but it didn’t seem to have any function.
I'd imagine the trackball on the Wico was actually a cue ball... they manufactured phenolic cue balls for decades.
Those joy ball (the blue one) controllers are rubbish, guaranteed to give you RSI in under 15min.
I have the Quickshot equivalent to the Roklan, more of a novelty than a real solution to game control, I always thought. I guess it could be useful if you couldn't operate a conventional controller, though. Side note: shame that Commodore didn't include the Galaxian round in Gorf.
What's that tiny c64 in the corner? I need that! Also I didn't know that these type of joysticks existed. Robin comes up with the goods again!
That's from a TheC64 keychain I bought a couple years ago; I'm not sure if they're available anymore. Didn't see any for sale with a quick search.
@@8_Bit And in a few years, they'll probably be able to fit a functional C64 emulator inside it. The connectors will take up more room than the PCB. :)
You just end up getting up so frustrated with this "amazing" different controller, it's makes you just want to reach out for a normal Joystick.
I had one of those... but i wasnt that proficient at trackball games. I was much better at atari 2600 Warlords. 😀
I converted a roller ball to my vic20 but found hard to find software that use(paddel). I did write some drawing software. Also made a light pen if I remember could only use on port one I found it recently did think about testing to see if it still works but would have to write some software for the vic20 again. Any ideas of software to test both these again either for vic20 or C64?
C'est la garbage! But if these could be made to work intelligently with paddle input?
Paddles are potentiometers. So, no.
You'd need a microcontroller and some hardware like in the 1351 mouse.
@@theannoyedmrfloyd3998 Hm, the Apple II joystick standard is a descendant of paddles, so maybe ? (I mention this because the first of these things says it has a Apple II version ...) I remember playing Arkanoid with a joystick ... that was weird. :)
I had a wico trackball just for playing Operation Wolf on the c64. It worked great for that port!
My brother and I used sharpie markers to decorate the ball... we thought that it looked cool.
I have an Atari trackball (the one with the round buttons, not the triangular ones). I followed an article in a magazine and did a mod on it so that it would function as an Amiga mouse. I added two more buttons and added switches to the underside so that I could switch back to its original configuration and still use it as a joystick, or even an Atari trackball. It worked fairly well. I think the only thing I ever found to use trackball mode with was a magazine Missile Command clone called Red Alert. I read the article and didn't see any mention of it supporting anything other than a joystick, so maybe I had a modified copy.
I never thought to try it on anything that supported a Commodore mouse, like Arkanoid II.
I think I had those Roklans when I was a kid. Xmas gift or something. Complete junk.
I had an Atari trackball for my 800 - it had a switch that allowed you to swap between trackball and joystick emulation modes, but joystick emulation was kind of awkward and Missile Command was the only game I owned that worked in trackball mode so it never saw a lot of use.
I wonder if the ball from the wico joystick is a reused snooker ball? I think they are made from phenolic and the size might be about right size (they are slightly smaller than billiard balls) and they even come in yellow!
Gonna do a 360 degree Hugo and Zangief grab
The coco version of the Wico trackball works much better (with the right games) as the coco uses analog joysticks.
They could add a joystick emul mode where roller speed translates to multiple movements just like auto fire. Then games could support it (without the analog paddle mode)
The Quickshot Joyball was a bit of an odd one out too. Kinda comfy to play certain games on though.
Jan Beta would use a power drill.
When in doubt, use jackhammer.
i wonder if you were to weigh down the bottom half of the Un-Roller if that would help the feel. Maybe glue in some metal weights and/or pour in some resin? It may not be worth it to you.
How exactly could a trackball (or any rotary encoder) ever be "true analog"? They are not potentiometer-based paddle controllers.
You can charge or discharge a capacitor with the pulses from the encoder I guess. That would make it discrete analog...
A trackball is as "analog" as a mouse. Take an old ball mouse, turn it upside-down and you have a mini-trackball.
@@lurkerrekrul I think the right word is "proportional".
I came here to say the same thing. Every trak ball I know about is digital
I wouldn't worry about it being ugly since 99% of the time you won't see it.
weird to use weak domeswitches while there is so much space. Cost must have been the most important thing...
Seems to me Arkanoid would be the game that would benefit from this.
The no-roller would drive me to distraction with the noise it made although it did seem to be a good controller in other respects. Great engineering on that trackball! Thanks for the video and can't wait till the next one!
Centipede would be a better game for trackballs.
Is there software to get any trackball to work like a joystick?
For quite a while I've been buying all the wico controllers I could find. The are the best in my opinion. I have more than pleases my wife.
Get her a joystick.
There's a brand new never opened Wico one on eBay now for $116.
The Wico parts look pretty close to authentic arcade trackballs I've taken apart. I will have to get one for these.
Wico was also known for designing and manufacturing all kinds of arcade games controllers as well as controllers for home video systems. As far as the Wico trackball that is actually a cue ball. Wico was also a manufacturer and distributor of billiard supplies. When Centipede came out there everyone loved the OEM trackball concept but it was not reliable. Wico improved its design and sold it as a replacement and eventually to the manufacturer of the game. You did pronounce the name correctly in your video. Wico was a family owned company. The "Wi" in Wico stood for the family name "Wiczer" and the (co) for "Company". My father and I worked there for many years.
I've never understood the fascination with trackballs. 10 minutes with a trackball and it feels like my forearm is on fire. 20 minutes and I need to rest my arm for an hour to be able to use it again.
Same. The Logitech trackman thumb ball thingy was much more comfortable. 20 years later of course...
Nice video! I subscribed :)
The unroller seems like it might (have) be(en) useful as an accessibility controller.
Yes, a more refined version of it could be very good for accessibility; as implemented it needs a fair bit of downward force that would limit how many could make use of it.
14:14 Those are bearings on either end, presumably to make them roll better!
Quite a nice thought, they didn't have to give you those, nor a microswitch, nor a quality trackball. But they did!
...who plays Gorf and doesn't just spam the space invaders with bullets until something hits?
This guy.
I had an actual Atari trackball back in the day for my C64. It was big and heavy. Matched the later Atari 8-Bit computer colors. Loved using it to play Crystal Castles port.
i believe i might have one wico as well.. i do have another one that looks like a trackball but it's actually more like the rokian one.. in commodore browns , it looks like half a ball is screw onto a board which holds two cassette tape style buttons.. quit unusual to use
I have one of those WICO controllers and it's pretty good, but it would have been 1000 times better if the ball was bigger.
My C64 joystick dome switches were always failing, I became a skilled dome switch surgeon.
Than you did not have an arcade. That thing surivived decathlon.
@@scality4309 Surviving Decathlon deserves an award I'm getting one.
🔮🔮
I always assumed it was pronounced _why-co_
A viewer found this TV commercial with Wico (terribly) rhyming with "sticko": ruclips.net/video/52E-9Bn4f-A/видео.html
Very nice! I would like to see how the track ball works with a game like Centipede, something that used a track ball in the arcade...I guess I have to buy one now (perhaps the TRS-80 version 🤔)!
That would be cool to see one of the other versions in action!
Rock the ball
Nice. Used to have a few Wicomico controllers back in the day. Cool to have the box too
360 degrees to infinite number of positions.
...360 degrees...*to an infinite* number of positions...what math is that?
The unroller controller board looks a lot like the one in the old "GemSticks" sold at Kmart for the C64 and Atari.
Wow, how long before we get a full C64 demo as the end credits?
I could see wanting this for arcade games like Missile Command that had a trackball. Not sure I'd want it for something designed for a joystick. I do enjoy your laugh when you find joy in things.
21:00 a bodge wire would probably work better, but if it's working right now you might as well leave it
A trackball was a decent, if not perfect, substitute for a paddle in Breakout style games. I remember having a small game for the C64 called Atomic Handball that worked quite well with a trackball.
I had that Blue and Yellow for my amiga back in the day
Every time I see a c64 joystick I wonder how much better the games would have been if they had a couple more buttons
There was no technical reason that they couldn't have had at least 3 buttons (the normal one and two more on the paddle lines). It's only because of traditional that they continued to only use one button. No hardware manufacturers wanted to make a 2-3-button joystick if there was no software for it, and most software companies didn't want to write games to use a 2-3 button joystick if most people didn't have one. Catch-22.
Actually, there's no reason that even the Atari 2600 couldn't have used the same design to support a 3-button joystick.
Yeah, it's unfortunate that Commodore finally decided to push a 2-button joystick around 1990 with the C64GS games console, but that was 1) way too late 2) the console very poorly 3) the joystick itself was horrible. The only good thing is that we do have a bit of a standard now, and some more recent games use it, and some other older games have been hacked to support it as well.
@@8_Bit Back in 1983, CBS Electronics tried to establish a two-button standard with their Booster Grip accessory that was included with Omega Race for the Atari 2600. Unfortunately, their idea was pretty flawed. It only fit on standard Atari joysticks, the handle itself swiveled on the joystick and you had to plug the joystick into it, then plug that into the console. They had plans to use it for their game Wings, but that never got released, and then the video game market crashed.
To be honest, I'm kind of torn about the number of buttons on a joystick. While I think there are many games that absolutely would benefit from a second button, there are many more games that over-complicate their controls by using multiple buttons. Take that version of Omega Race as an example; Having a button dedicated to Thrust replicates the arcade, but do you really need it? Personally, I'd rather just push forward on the stick.
I played the standard Amiga version of Benefactor and I don't recall having any trouble pulling off the moves, yet the CD32 port uses three buttons to initiate the various moves. To be honest, I kept pressing the wrong button most of the time.
Sometimes when designing a game for a system with multiple buttons on the controller, the designers will feel an obligation to use all of the buttons for something, regardless of whether that simplifies or complicates the game. Take the original Resident Evil/Dino Crisis games. Why are there separate buttons for aiming a weapon and firing it? Why not one button to raise the weapon and fire it? It's not like "aiming" it in the semi-3D display really helps that much. You're still just turning in the general direction of the enemy.
Imagine a game like Ghostbusters on the C64. If that had been made for a system like the PS1 first, you would use L1/R1 to place your guys at each location, L2/R2 to fire each one's streams. L1/R1 to select which character you wanted to move, X to fire the trap. Triangle to turn the Image Intensifier on/off. O to abort that capture. While driving, it would use X for accelerate, Square for brake, O to activate the vacuum. Triangle to sound your horn, L1/R1 to change lanes, etc.
I've actually got one of those Booster Grips from Omega Race and have a planned video called "The One Button Problem" or something like that, on my long list of video ideas. I agree that many games are totally fine with just the one button and it does seem that many game developers feel they need to use every available button on the controller whether it serves the game or not.
@@8_Bit A while back I tried out the game Joe Gunn Gold for the C64. Left/right walks in those directions, up/down climb/descend ladders. Pressing the button and pushing to the side makes him jump and/or climb up a block if there's one in front of him. Down and the button searches whatever object he's in front of. Up and the button brings up the inventory which you can then scroll through with the button pressed and releasing it will try to use the selected item.
It works pretty well and although there's no way to jump up and over enemies, I think that was a design choice rather than a limitation of the controls. They could have always made up/diagonal initiate a jump.
Fun to see these in action! All I can think of is how every C64 mouse had a joystick emulation mode if you booted whilst holding the right button. As someone who had mostly Atari/Suncom joysticks that broke too soon, this was a lifesaver -- even if it was very awkward to play a game with!
Also this completely unlocked a memory for me. Why was it that you would get junk characters at the BASIC prompt if you moved a standard C64 joystick in Port 1?
This old video of mine deals with that issue in the first few minutes I think. Basically, the keyboard shares some control lines with joystick port 1, and the keyboard code gets confused: ruclips.net/video/a8B-EJQu6i0/видео.html
@@8_Bit Wonderful! Thanks for linking it - and for that matter thanks for making the video!
💪😎👌
I say it like Why-Co
A viewer found this TV commercial with Wico (terribly) rhyming with "sticko": ruclips.net/video/52E-9Bn4f-A/видео.html
@@8_Bit Well, I stand corrected!
@@MatroxMillennium I wasn't really sure myself! But I'm certainly not going to pick a fight with that commercial :O :)
Robin, your videos are always a pleasure to watch. Thank you so much for making them!
Aw, it was awesome to see your trackball skills go from newbie to pro. I've never played games with the trackball but it fascinated me how you don't have to roll back. Like when you go right in the game and you really spinn the ball to the right you still go left again with just a push. Very good.
That's because when you roll the ball, the sensors just detect which direction(s) it's being rolled in and signal the console/computer that the "joystick" is being moved in that direction. A true trackball functions like an upside-down mouse.
Although, the few arcade ones that I've played in my life, seem to have the sensitivity set quite low. You know how if the mouse speed is set too low, you move the mouse to the side, the pointer goes halfway across the screen, then you have to pick it up, physically move the mouse the other way and then move it again? All the arcade machines I've used a trackball on kind of felt like that. You roll your hand across the ball and the crosshair/gun/whatever moves half as far as you expected, then you have to move your hand back to the other side and roll it again.
At least that's been my experience. I imagine with an emulator like MAME, you could set the sensitivity higher so that you could reach anywhere on the screen without taking your hand off the ball.
@@lurkerrekrul Oh, those low sensitive mice.. I know. Well, I wasn't pondering on the magic existence of the trackball and it just kept me awake every night because I just don't understand how they work. I do remember computer magazines back in the day introduced trackballs and used the very same term to describe them. "It's like a mouse upsidedown". Nah, call me an old fashioned romantic but I just like the idea that we do have trackballs.