Wow, don't know quite how i arrived here, but now i am here i just want to say what fond memories this joystick gave me way back in the Amiga 500 days. I used this exact stick to play games like Apidya, Battle squadron and loads of other shooters. I had this stick years and never gave me any problems. I remember screwing it down too a piece of wood that would sit better on my lap so it wouldn't move around so much. Those days, wow thanks for bringing them back to me. Still play Amiga Battle Squadron today but only through Amiga forever. My Amiga has long since gone. I still wish i had it and all those floppys. I know it's silly, but i still remember saving my money to go out and buy Z-Out and rush back to play it. Great days Thanks again
Well, it's better to have a "goofstick " to have some joy with than to have a joystick that is "goofed". Why not trying a Tac-2 joystick, they were notorious for not breaking down. In fact, they lasted forever. Thank you for making these excellent videos. I myself love retrogaming, but I am more of a Playstation 1 (PSX) and 2 type of guy. Many thanks and hugs to you, my dear Lady 😁❤
Hahah true, Well i'll continue to enjoy my joyed goofsticks then ;o)) Tac-2 Joystick.. I must try this, i've never heard of it. Aah PSX has some warm memories for me too, the Crash Bandicoot games in particular :oD Thanks for the kind words Kosmos Man :o)
Tac-2 joysticks were even more simple inside because they didn't have actual switches inside them. The joystick shaft was metal with a ball on the lower end and the ground wire was clipped to it. In the base there were four metal plates arranged around the bottom end of the shaft. When you moved the joystick, the ball on the shaft would touch one of the plates and make contact. The fire buttons (there were two, but they were wired the same) had a brass washer under the button that would make contact across two pieces of metal when the button was pressed. The case is nicely rounded so that it doesn't hurt your hand when you hold it, and the shaft has a ball on top. In theory, nothing should ever go wrong with them, however... Every so often, the fire buttons seem to stop registering. I'm not sure if they're supposed to have conductive grease on them or not, but mine never did. When this happens, I usually take it apart and use sandpaper on the washers. Also, the part of the joystick shaft where the ground wire clips on is about half the thickness of the rest of the shaft. While its still metal and pretty strong, I have seen one break after a lot of rough use. I'm not saying that Tac-2 joysticks are bad, in fact I really like mine, just that they're not perfect.
Thanks so much for your channel. Watching your videos remimds me of old university times when a friend and I used to tinker with old electronics into the early hours. Also love the moroccan(?) style vibe! You've mentioned you use a tracker. Would make a nice video? I've always wanted to learn. Te veo pronto!
That's my pleasure, thank you! Tracker request noted. I really need to start recording the video series of how I make my music, it's been requested a few times, i've even jotted stuff down for it, and of course It will include how I use Soundtracker pro and going into the basics. I have stuff from all over the Arabian world and yes also some from Andalucia and Morocco too (which is probably what you've picked up on here) :o) Te veo pronto. Saludos!
Only thing I would have made differently...I would rather file or dremel the contacts of the switches than soldering them. These switches don't like heat that much and with the connectors still attached you had to turn up the temp quite a bit. Congrats on the repair! Great video as always!
That would have been some seriously tedious work dremelling or filing each terminal :o)) I do understand about the heat, thankfully the flux helped, I didnt have to heat it too much. And Thanks! :o)
ha-ha, amazing video! I have had to do this so many times, but finding the old hard type ones are rare these days. The latest soft type of these switches are useless and only last six months before noticing a drop in performance. I bought a pink zipstik for the purpose of replacing my old switches, so now I have two zipstiks - one quite new in feel and the other very much softer - which I guess I should replace with better switches. Btw, amazing Pac Mania score. John4p is a like a pro player of Amiga games, so to beat him at anything in the compo is impressive indeed.
Haha thanks! These switches seem quite tough to be honest, but lets see how long they last through all these nostalgia times and Lemon - EAB comps. Thank you! I still love PacMania believe it or not but it's going to be a while before I play it again, maybe I will on the C64. Yes the scores were close, the first I played PacMania was when I was around 6, I think every little detail about this game, ghost behaviours, speed increases is etched in my mind, except for the freakin pause lol. I'm not sure ifi'll beat John4p again haha let's see. :o)
The lose wire inside the joystick housing seems to be a "cold" solder spot… When the solder did not really hold the contact between the wire and the board anymore. These things suck.. even more so when it's microdimensional damages like it is with my Dreamcast which has such a problem... It constantly resets itself and it looks that the power supply board is affected by such an issue and would need a re-flow. But those things are tricky and i can't do that myself ;_; And boy, I love my Dreamcast as much as you love your precious Amiga. At least this wire inside the joystick could be easily re-soldered again.
Look al the diagram of a computer, all the joystick does to to shortwire some lines - very simple. And the auto fire is just a monostable multivibrator
hahahahahaha.... Oh Maddi, you're an absolute gem :) :) what an honour to be in your video and to have had the privilege to taunt you.. LOL :p I am the opposition, the opposition that shall trounce you in Lionheart! :O Your Joystick repair skills are impeccable, I used to rip my old Quickshot Python sticks apart and swap parts when things would go wrong years back, but they were rubber pressure pad and not Microswitched, my current sticks though are Microswitched :) Ah oh!!.. I had no idea about that in Pang when you break all the blocks!! Cool :) Ok Ms Lemon, I'll see your awesome self back in Lionheart and of course in the comments section :) :) I was not worthy in Pacmania, I shall be worthy in Lionheart!!! Mwuahahahahaha... Thank you for the mention ya little nutter :p :p
hahaha :o) Yeah maybe in Lionheart but we have two games running, Tetris Pro also, so we will see about that one ;o)) .. I got so accustomed to microswitched, it's hard to accept any other, you mind gets used to that reassuring click :o)) I've not tried Quickshot Python, i'm sure it's better than the other Quickshots I tried back in the day, One of my brothers got this one, I remember it being not so nice and broke down quick: www.thosewerethedays.de/items/joysticks/quickjoy_jet_fighter_sv-126_620x660.JPG The other I tried once was this awful piece of junk: s3.amazonaws.com/bonanzleimages/afu/images/5539/8182/QuickShot2.jpg I went back to zipsticks straight away lol For the mention, my pleasure, all in good fun :o) :op Also we will see if your oo la la-ing about Lionheart is just hot air or not lol :op
I remember auto-fire on certain games was too fast to be affective. Some joysticks had a slider to change the fire rate. Good video. I hope my joystick works when I finally get the C64 working :D
Niice! I remember joysticks with multiple speed settings but never seen a slider one I dont think! Haha your zipstick? hopefully it does, if not they're not hard to fix :o)
Maddi, I'm pretty sure the Lemons feel bad for you wrecking your Joystick. Probably even more so because you won and became the Pacmania Champion :D I think it's worth it. Just like running a marathon and your running shoes fall apart after you crossed the finish line and stepped on the 1st place podest ;)
I grew up on consoles and never used joystick controllers. I love the looks of them, but the one I tested that came with my TheC64 Maxi was not a great introduction for me, I hate it. Your passion for the Zip Stick though makes me want to try it out.
Atari controllers were quite simple. Unless they had auto-fire, Atari joysticks didn't have any electronic components at all, just five switches. Four for the directions and one for the fire button. All were wired to ground, and then each switch was wired to one of the lines in the controller port. Atari/Commodore paddles used potentiometers that were each connected between one of the POT lines and +5v. They also used the joystick left/right lines as the paddle fire buttons. Even the keyboard controllers/video touch pad didn't have any electronics, it was all just switches that connected various pins. BTW, you can use a cheap USB gamepad as an interface for hooking up an Atari joystick to a modern computer. Just open up the gamepad and solder wires from the D-pad contacts and one or more of the buttons to the correct pins on a 9-pin socket. Plug in an Atari joystick and when you move the stick and it presses a switch, it will make the gamepad think that the D-pad was moved. You could also do this with controllers for systems like the NES, SNES, Genesis, and even the Playstation. Of course you would only have one button (unless you add more), but you'd be able to play NES games with an Atari joystick. :) Back in the Atari era, one company even made and sold an auto-fire adapter that you could plug in between any joystick and the console (Atari, C64, Amiga, etc) and get auto-fire. It had a little knob so you could adjust how fast it fired. The only disadvantage to it was that it couldn't be turned off. Even if you turned it all the way down, it would still auto-fire, just at a slower rate. So you wouldn't be able to play games where you need to hold the button down. Although I suppose it would have been easy enough to build an adapter-adapter with a switch to bypass it for when you want to turn it off. :) Finally, I think the voice is saying "Bonus" when you pick up the points in Menace.
Nice! Thanks for the info, esp abotu USB gamepads, in case I ever need to convert I can :o) looking at that autofire circuit, it looks to be so simple actually, I'm sure something similar can be done using a 555 timer IC, it's just an oscillation i'm figuring, something turning the signal between on and off rapidly. My third zipstick has no autofire but I may make a video about making an autofire for it. I need to look into that :o)
If you Google for Autofire Circuit, you'll find information on building various types. Adding a space between the words Auto & Fire will also give you a few different results. I've never built one myself (my knowledge of electronics is practically non-existent), but they seem simple enough. They aren't just used for Atari joysticks, but any controller where a button/switch needs to be quickly toggled on/off.
Great video as usual =D The Cruiser is a superior joystick ;) I've got a few Zip Sticks, but I prefer the Cruiser - so much I ended up with 5 Cruisers lol.
Noooo! Never!!!! Zipsticks will always rule! ;op lol.. Actually i've been tempted by the Cruisers and I may still get one..but, every one i've seen doesnt seem to have an autofire switch, or do they? and thanks! :oD
lol, there had to be somebody mentioning it ;o)) i'm tempted to actually give the cruiser a go, I know i'm always going to be team zipstick lol but i'm also intrigued by the adjustable tension which you mentioned, i'm learning :o)
That's a lovely disk you have in your intro, I'm a fan of "I (heart) my Amiga" text on it. But here's my question. Since your wires had those fittings on them why did you tin the legs of the switches? Why didn't you just put them on as they intended to be put on?
Ahaa I get you... actually yeah, I should have had that out, I ended up just inserting background music. Well it got a much needed rest today then ;o) lol. It'll be out next time. Thank you Steve! :o)
Oh Maddi! make your life easier, snip the spade connectors off and solder the wires directly! :) . Also a pair of 'helping hands / solder tool' will help steady your work.
lol the reason why i didnt snip off and strip the wires is for future microswitches (which arrived late) that are the right fit for the connectors :o) And I edited out the rant about "helping hands" i have two pairs and the hands keep detaching rendering them freakin useless :op
Hi guys if anyone can point me to the right direction , i just got a A500 a friend just gifted me but it doesn't work , i hear clicks when i turn the switch on but the leds do not turn on or blink. I just moved from the UK and now live near San Francisco. If there are any american fans here could you point me to someone who could help fix it. Cheers
There's a huge community here of Commodore Amiga users who will help each other out, i'd say this is the primary Amiga group on facebook if you have it. facebook.com/groups/CommodoreAmiga/
Great! I knew you would find some help there, there's quite a very much alive Amiga community going on there! :o) Zool was nice! My favourite level is the second one, the music level haha I must play that again!
The micro switches in the first one are made by Saia in Switzerland, I wouldn't replace them, they are far superior to anything you might replace them with. Current prices are about three times what their competitors charge as they are industrial quality. No idea what's in the second one, but I suspect they had already been replaced which is why the fire buttons were different and possibly another 2 Saia buttons, or they might be Otehail Zero Plus micro switches made in England, but they don't look to be the same quality.
Some excellent restorations and fixes, I learn a lot from you. I have a question with regards to micro switches. You seem to have just used any old micro switch that you have in your collection, and apart from size, does anything else matter? I have a few Competition Pros in need of micro switch repairs and I was trying to source some new ones from www.distrelec.ch/en/manufacturer/saia/man_sai?q=*&filter_productFamilyCode=cat-DC-79288, rather than eBay as they are quite expensive. As I also have several other types of broken joysticks, can I just salvage micro switches them from them, as long as they fit and have the right connections? Changing the fire button switches to the opposite side is also a brilliant idea.
I'm not sure where you're based but I ended up getting myself some zippy microswitches from Arcade World UK www.arcadeworlduk.com/search.php?search_query=microswitch To be honest, at that time just choosing the microswitches, I went by look strictly lol.. but I later found Arcade World UK and got myself some Zippy Microswitches... which i'm still yet to install in my joysticks :o) One thing I did notice is that the ones I bought, the joystick spade connectors were too small to fit the microswitch contacts, which is why i soldered them on instead.
I just fixed a yellow Zipstick, and it had two French micro-switches on the fire buttons and some of the worst completely unmarked micro-switches for the directional controls it's ever been my misfortune to see, opened one up and instead of pulling the end of the spring to switch it over they are trying to press the middle of the spring. Awful idea and they hardly work at all, sometimes they definitely don't. Fixed them with some spares but I might replace them all with Cherry DX44 switches. It's a far cry from the pink one I have with the finest Swiss made micro-switches I've ever seen. That may have been when they were popular and just trying to take it for every penny they could?
Maddi, did you ever see "War Games"? That movie got me interested in computers, I was 14 when I purchased, Atari game console, I thought I was going to take over the world. Ha, Ha,😁😁🌍🌍🌍
It's a good film though a bit slow paced now. And if you've seen the American missile system reports recently it's even more scary, they are still using the really big old dinner plate sized floppy disks, not even the 1.44 HD floppies. If I'd known they were that far behind I'd have sent them my ls120 drive. 🤦
Noooo. Use 4.8mm not 6.3mm, or just strip the wires back and solder the lot instead of using the spade connectors. But I'm keeping mine as original as possible.
I remember the first R-Type in the spectrum. :-) I remember was quite a breakthrough in Spectrum games... the graphics and sound were better than the usual games. It had great reviews back then :-P
Spectrum is actually pretty good, I think it's a little stupid to compare it to the C64 as they each have different strengths, gaming style is different. There are some games I prefer more on spectrum than C64, like the Horace series, well i've only tried Horace goes skiing and Hungry Horace :o)
MsMadLemon I think i was never so much into gaming but little by little I start remembering all these games I used to play :-) decathlon for spectrum was the usual joystick killer :-D
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Wow, don't know quite how i arrived here, but now i am here i just want to say what fond memories this joystick gave me way back in the Amiga 500 days. I used this exact stick to play games like Apidya, Battle squadron and loads of other shooters. I had this stick years and never gave me any problems. I remember screwing it down too a piece of wood that would sit better on my lap so it wouldn't move around so much. Those days, wow thanks for bringing them back to me. Still play Amiga Battle Squadron today but only through Amiga forever. My Amiga has long since gone. I still wish i had it and all those floppys. I know it's silly, but i still remember saving my money to go out and buy Z-Out and rush back to play it. Great days
Thanks again
Job well done!
and what a nice profile photo.
Amiga in our hearts forever.
Thank you Jan! :o)
Is this the distant cousin of Jan Beta? :o
Wow !!! After all this long time, i found my beloved AMIGA game :D Thankssss
Well, it's better to have a "goofstick " to have some joy with than to have a joystick that is "goofed". Why not trying a Tac-2 joystick, they were notorious for not breaking down. In fact, they lasted forever. Thank you for making these excellent videos. I myself love retrogaming, but I am more of a Playstation 1 (PSX) and 2 type of guy. Many thanks and hugs to you, my dear Lady 😁❤
Hahah true, Well i'll continue to enjoy my joyed goofsticks then ;o))
Tac-2 Joystick.. I must try this, i've never heard of it. Aah PSX has some warm memories for me too, the Crash Bandicoot games in particular :oD
Thanks for the kind words Kosmos Man :o)
Tac-2 joysticks were even more simple inside because they didn't have actual switches inside them. The joystick shaft was metal with a ball on the lower end and the ground wire was clipped to it. In the base there were four metal plates arranged around the bottom end of the shaft. When you moved the joystick, the ball on the shaft would touch one of the plates and make contact. The fire buttons (there were two, but they were wired the same) had a brass washer under the button that would make contact across two pieces of metal when the button was pressed. The case is nicely rounded so that it doesn't hurt your hand when you hold it, and the shaft has a ball on top.
In theory, nothing should ever go wrong with them, however...
Every so often, the fire buttons seem to stop registering. I'm not sure if they're supposed to have conductive grease on them or not, but mine never did. When this happens, I usually take it apart and use sandpaper on the washers. Also, the part of the joystick shaft where the ground wire clips on is about half the thickness of the rest of the shaft. While its still metal and pretty strong, I have seen one break after a lot of rough use.
I'm not saying that Tac-2 joysticks are bad, in fact I really like mine, just that they're not perfect.
Thanks so much for your channel. Watching your videos remimds me of old university times when a friend and I used to tinker with old electronics into the early hours.
Also love the moroccan(?) style vibe!
You've mentioned you use a tracker. Would make a nice video? I've always wanted to learn.
Te veo pronto!
That's my pleasure, thank you!
Tracker request noted. I really
need to start recording the video series of how I make my music, it's
been requested a few times, i've even jotted stuff down for it, and of
course It will include how I use Soundtracker pro and going into the
basics.
I have stuff from all over the Arabian world and yes also
some from Andalucia and Morocco too (which is probably what you've
picked up on here) :o)
Te veo pronto.
Saludos!
Good work maddie... I have joystick problems... having seen this, I’m off to service my joysticks now!
Hi Maddy, what is that white bottle [Singer] liquid that you have used for the stick??
Hi Walter, that Singer bottle is machine oil used for mechanism lubrication, I guess you could use grease too.
Only thing I would have made differently...I would rather file or dremel the contacts of the switches than soldering them. These switches don't like heat that much and with the connectors still attached you had to turn up the temp quite a bit.
Congrats on the repair! Great video as always!
That would have been some seriously tedious work dremelling or filing each terminal :o))
I do understand about the heat, thankfully the flux helped, I didnt have to heat it too much.
And Thanks! :o)
ha-ha, amazing video! I have had to do this so many times, but finding the old hard type ones are rare these days. The latest soft type of these switches are useless and only last six months before noticing a drop in performance. I bought a pink zipstik for the purpose of replacing my old switches, so now I have two zipstiks - one quite new in feel and the other very much softer - which I guess I should replace with better switches. Btw, amazing Pac Mania score. John4p is a like a pro player of Amiga games, so to beat him at anything in the compo is impressive indeed.
Haha thanks! These switches seem quite tough to be honest, but lets see how long they last through all these nostalgia times and Lemon - EAB comps.
Thank you! I still love PacMania believe it or not but it's going to be a while before I play it again, maybe I will on the C64.
Yes the scores were close, the first I played PacMania was when I was around 6, I think every little detail about this game, ghost behaviours, speed increases is etched in my mind, except for the freakin pause lol. I'm not sure ifi'll beat John4p again haha let's see. :o)
The lose wire inside the joystick housing seems to be a "cold" solder spot… When the solder did not really hold the contact between the wire and the board anymore. These things suck.. even more so when it's microdimensional damages like it is with my Dreamcast which has such a problem... It constantly resets itself and it looks that the power supply board is affected by such an issue and would need a re-flow. But those things are tricky and i can't do that myself ;_; And boy, I love my Dreamcast as much as you love your precious Amiga. At least this wire inside the joystick could be easily re-soldered again.
Look al the diagram of a computer, all the joystick does to to shortwire some lines - very simple. And the auto fire is just a monostable multivibrator
i'm learning :o)
hahahahahaha.... Oh Maddi, you're an absolute gem :) :) what an honour to be in your video and to have had the privilege to taunt you.. LOL :p I am the opposition, the opposition that shall trounce you in Lionheart! :O
Your Joystick repair skills are impeccable, I used to rip my old Quickshot Python sticks apart and swap parts when things would go wrong years back, but they were rubber pressure pad and not Microswitched, my current sticks though are Microswitched :)
Ah oh!!.. I had no idea about that in Pang when you break all the blocks!! Cool :)
Ok Ms Lemon, I'll see your awesome self back in Lionheart and of course in the comments section :) :)
I was not worthy in Pacmania, I shall be worthy in Lionheart!!! Mwuahahahahaha...
Thank you for the mention ya little nutter :p :p
hahaha :o)
Yeah maybe in Lionheart but we have two games running, Tetris Pro also, so we will see about that one ;o)) ..
I got so accustomed to microswitched, it's hard to accept any other, you mind gets used to that reassuring click :o))
I've not tried Quickshot Python, i'm sure it's better than the other Quickshots I tried back in the day,
One of my brothers got this one, I remember it being not so nice and broke down quick: www.thosewerethedays.de/items/joysticks/quickjoy_jet_fighter_sv-126_620x660.JPG
The other I tried once was this awful piece of junk: s3.amazonaws.com/bonanzleimages/afu/images/5539/8182/QuickShot2.jpg
I went back to zipsticks straight away lol
For the mention, my pleasure, all in good fun :o) :op
Also we will see if your oo la la-ing about Lionheart is just hot air or not lol :op
I remember auto-fire on certain games was too fast to be affective. Some joysticks had a slider to change the fire rate. Good video. I hope my joystick works when I finally get the C64 working :D
Niice! I remember joysticks with multiple speed settings but never seen a slider one I dont think!
Haha your zipstick? hopefully it does, if not they're not hard to fix :o)
Maddi, I'm pretty sure the Lemons feel bad for you wrecking your Joystick. Probably even more so because you won and became the Pacmania Champion :D I think it's worth it. Just like running a marathon and your running shoes fall apart after you crossed the finish line and stepped on the 1st place podest ;)
Hahah nah they shouldnt feel bad, it's all in good fun and the fun was worth the casualties :o)
Yeah, seeing the stockpiled microswitches (thank god you got a wholesome of these) you're well prepared for more demanding competitions :P
I usually don't replace the switches but I crack them open and clean the contacts. In 99% of all cases, that makes them work again... at least for me.
I grew up on consoles and never used joystick controllers. I love the looks of them, but the one I tested that came with my TheC64 Maxi was not a great introduction for me, I hate it. Your passion for the Zip Stick though makes me want to try it out.
Atari controllers were quite simple. Unless they had auto-fire, Atari joysticks didn't have any electronic components at all, just five switches. Four for the directions and one for the fire button. All were wired to ground, and then each switch was wired to one of the lines in the controller port. Atari/Commodore paddles used potentiometers that were each connected between one of the POT lines and +5v. They also used the joystick left/right lines as the paddle fire buttons. Even the keyboard controllers/video touch pad didn't have any electronics, it was all just switches that connected various pins.
BTW, you can use a cheap USB gamepad as an interface for hooking up an Atari joystick to a modern computer. Just open up the gamepad and solder wires from the D-pad contacts and one or more of the buttons to the correct pins on a 9-pin socket. Plug in an Atari joystick and when you move the stick and it presses a switch, it will make the gamepad think that the D-pad was moved. You could also do this with controllers for systems like the NES, SNES, Genesis, and even the Playstation. Of course you would only have one button (unless you add more), but you'd be able to play NES games with an Atari joystick. :)
Back in the Atari era, one company even made and sold an auto-fire adapter that you could plug in between any joystick and the console (Atari, C64, Amiga, etc) and get auto-fire. It had a little knob so you could adjust how fast it fired. The only disadvantage to it was that it couldn't be turned off. Even if you turned it all the way down, it would still auto-fire, just at a slower rate. So you wouldn't be able to play games where you need to hold the button down. Although I suppose it would have been easy enough to build an adapter-adapter with a switch to bypass it for when you want to turn it off. :)
Finally, I think the voice is saying "Bonus" when you pick up the points in Menace.
Nice! Thanks for the info, esp abotu USB gamepads, in case I ever need to convert I can :o)
looking at that autofire circuit, it looks to be so simple actually, I'm sure something similar can be done using a 555 timer IC, it's just an oscillation i'm figuring, something turning the signal between on and off rapidly. My third zipstick has no autofire but I may make a video about making an autofire for it. I need to look into that :o)
If you Google for Autofire Circuit, you'll find information on building various types. Adding a space between the words Auto & Fire will also give you a few different results. I've never built one myself (my knowledge of electronics is practically non-existent), but they seem simple enough.
They aren't just used for Atari joysticks, but any controller where a button/switch needs to be quickly toggled on/off.
R-Type on the Amiga was technical good, but it was unplayable hard, even compared to the arcade version.
Great video as usual =D The Cruiser is a superior joystick ;) I've got a few Zip Sticks, but I prefer the Cruiser - so much I ended up with 5 Cruisers lol.
Noooo! Never!!!! Zipsticks will always rule! ;op lol.. Actually i've been tempted by the Cruisers and I may still get one..but, every one i've seen doesnt seem to have an autofire switch, or do they?
and thanks! :oD
lol, there had to be somebody mentioning it ;o)) i'm tempted to actually give the cruiser a go, I know i'm always going to be team zipstick lol but i'm also intrigued by the adjustable tension which you mentioned, i'm learning :o)
Hehe, yes - most don't have an auto fire, but it's easy to add an autofire I suppose. The thing I like about the Cruiser is it feels easier to hold.
I do wonder if there's a way to convert the Zipstick 🕹️ to a two button 🕹️.
That's a lovely disk you have in your intro, I'm a fan of "I (heart) my Amiga" text on it. But here's my question. Since your wires had those fittings on them why did you tin the legs of the switches? Why didn't you just put them on as they intended to be put on?
what switches did you get and where from :D
I ordered them on ebay, from China, just in small bulk purchase, they're not bad, though time will tell :o)
If you look around you can get some good quality cherry ones for just over £1 each.
Great video. where's the tape player gone ??? lol
lol you mean on the intro? I have different intros for different categories/topics :o)
lol.x no the tape player you had playing in view on your previous videos. please keep posting loving your excitement :-)
Ahaa I get you... actually yeah, I should have had that out, I ended up just inserting background music. Well it got a much needed rest today then ;o) lol. It'll be out next time.
Thank you Steve! :o)
Happy days :-).x
You make the best videos...
Thanks!
Oh Maddi! make your life easier, snip the spade connectors off and solder the wires directly! :) . Also a pair of 'helping hands / solder tool' will help steady your work.
lol the reason why i didnt snip off and strip the wires is for future microswitches (which arrived late) that are the right fit for the connectors :o) And I edited out the rant about "helping hands" i have two pairs and the hands keep detaching rendering them freakin useless :op
Hi guys if anyone can point me to the right direction , i just got a A500 a friend just gifted me but it doesn't work , i hear clicks when i turn the switch on but the leds do not turn on or blink. I just moved from the UK and now live near San Francisco. If there are any american fans here could you point me to someone who could help fix it. Cheers
There's a huge community here of Commodore Amiga users who will help each other out, i'd say this is the primary Amiga group on facebook if you have it. facebook.com/groups/CommodoreAmiga/
Thanks Maddi , great advice ive joined the group and had some feedback already great :) by the way do you remember the game Zool that was kick ass
Great! I knew you would find some help there, there's quite a very much alive Amiga community going on there! :o)
Zool was nice! My favourite level is the second one, the music level haha I must play that again!
The micro switches in the first one are made by Saia in Switzerland, I wouldn't replace them, they are far superior to anything you might replace them with. Current prices are about three times what their competitors charge as they are industrial quality. No idea what's in the second one, but I suspect they had already been replaced which is why the fire buttons were different and possibly another 2 Saia buttons, or they might be Otehail Zero Plus micro switches made in England, but they don't look to be the same quality.
nice work
Some excellent restorations and fixes, I learn a lot from you. I have a question with regards to micro switches. You seem to have just used any old micro switch that you have in your collection, and apart from size, does anything else matter? I have a few Competition Pros in need of micro switch repairs and I was trying to source some new ones from www.distrelec.ch/en/manufacturer/saia/man_sai?q=*&filter_productFamilyCode=cat-DC-79288, rather than eBay as they are quite expensive. As I also have several other types of broken joysticks, can I just salvage micro switches them from them, as long as they fit and have the right connections? Changing the fire button switches to the opposite side is also a brilliant idea.
I'm not sure where you're based but I ended up getting myself some zippy microswitches from Arcade World UK
www.arcadeworlduk.com/search.php?search_query=microswitch
To be honest, at that time just choosing the microswitches, I went by look strictly lol.. but I later found Arcade World UK and got myself some Zippy Microswitches... which i'm still yet to install in my joysticks :o)
One thing I did notice is that the ones I bought, the joystick spade connectors were too small to fit the microswitch contacts, which is why i soldered them on instead.
Thanks for your video. I need to open my zipstick to find out ‘what the frick has goofed it up’ to make it ‘suck’ at left direction! :)
I just fixed a yellow Zipstick, and it had two French micro-switches on the fire buttons and some of the worst completely unmarked micro-switches for the directional controls it's ever been my misfortune to see, opened one up and instead of pulling the end of the spring to switch it over they are trying to press the middle of the spring. Awful idea and they hardly work at all, sometimes they definitely don't. Fixed them with some spares but I might replace them all with Cherry DX44 switches. It's a far cry from the pink one I have with the finest Swiss made micro-switches I've ever seen. That may have been when they were popular and just trying to take it for every penny they could?
2 hours later..."I'm gonna stop this, this is not nostalgia time" 😂
Lol! I was struggling there! ;o))
Maddi, did you ever see "War Games"? That movie got me interested in computers, I was 14 when I purchased, Atari game console, I thought I was going to take over the world. Ha, Ha,😁😁🌍🌍🌍
No i´ve not seen that movie, hahah it must have felt amazing having something like that in those days when computers were something very strange :o))
MsMadLemon I think you will enjoy watching the movie, please let me know
It's a good film though a bit slow paced now. And if you've seen the American missile system reports recently it's even more scary, they are still using the really big old dinner plate sized floppy disks, not even the 1.44 HD floppies. If I'd known they were that far behind I'd have sent them my ls120 drive. 🤦
Noooo.
Use 4.8mm not 6.3mm, or just strip the wires back and solder the lot instead of using the spade connectors.
But I'm keeping mine as original as possible.
Thumbs up from me.. :D
Thank you! :o)
R-TYPE? :))
Yess! 19:46 R-Type II :o)
I remember the first R-Type in the spectrum. :-) I remember was quite a breakthrough in Spectrum games... the graphics and sound were better than the usual games. It had great reviews back then :-P
Spectrum is actually pretty good, I think it's a little stupid to compare it to the C64 as they each have different strengths, gaming style is different. There are some games I prefer more on spectrum than C64, like the Horace series, well i've only tried Horace goes skiing and Hungry Horace :o)
MsMadLemon I think i was never so much into gaming but little by little I start remembering all these games I used to play :-) decathlon for spectrum was the usual joystick killer :-D
Looks like Krillen out of Dragon ball z
you can repair a simple joystick, but not a zx spectrum
that is correct, a zx spectrum is considerably more complicated than a joystick
The spectrum was a bit of a kludge when it was released, if you have an issue with clock and signal pulses it can get very complicated.
Those are horrible Suzo Competition Pro knock-off joysticks......get the original ones which are WAY better quality and play much nicer.
Zipsticks are amazing. Take your blinkers off.