Controllers... lots of them.

[liquidx]

more here

[Vnera]

Nice i always wondered how the famicom version of the advantage looked like. And now i know (now i also now when i could never find a pic of it )

[level42]

Sorry but....I don't really get it. Are these joysticks offered to set an alarm clock ?!?!

What a waste....

I also don't like they say the Wico was the best joystick on the market and that they say the Kempston was not one of the best.

Here's what they write about Kempston:
Kempston Micro Electronics was an electronics company specialising in computer joysticks and related home computer peripherals during the 1980s. Kempston was based in Kempston, Bedfordshire, England.

Bullshit. The Kempston was just another brand for the Suzo Competition Pro. Suzo is (and was) a Dutch company and the joysticks were built in Rotterdam. I know because classmates did an internship there.
And that, IS the best home joystick ever, and I mean the early (and RARE) all leaf (buttons AND stick) version of course. I bought it when I had the Atari 2600 and it still works 100% today

Yes, the Wico is good in quality, but it's LOOOOOOONG shaft gives it a HUUUUUUGE travel and thus too slow. It's also simply too big too hold. Even today (and I am big) I find it uncomfortable to hold it. The Suzo is much more compact, has an ultra short travel and throw and thus is the perfect stick.

Ow, well OK it's all just MHO.

[Q*ris]

Back in the days, no matter what I was always coming back to this one:

...and it still works 100% today.
It was like my excalibur, a perfect and undestructible killing weapon 

[level42]

Yep, that's the follow-up of the Competition Pro. Basically the same stick.

The drawbacks of that one were the single button (which meant bending in your thumb much more) and of course this one had the micro-switches. Still beats the Wico though IMHO.

[Etienne MacGyver]

I had 2 joysticks in my days of the C64

one was the stick mentioned by Level42, and back in the days i added a switch as you can see as a kind of "autofire"  



but i did not have the leaf variant, that is , the buttons where leaf, and the stick was microswitch..



You may think, whats all that wire there, and mods, but in fact i loved that stick so much that i hacked in a keyboard controller so i can still use it in mame !

Also i comfirm that they where made in rotterdam, heck, its even "etched" in the PCB..  



as for my other stick, that was "the Speedking" by Konix wich in some games gave the advantage of "holding" the joystick in hand..



for example, decathlon, or hyper olympic (track n field) played really well on this stick IMO, although nothing beats the Suzo..

more sticks here http://www.thosewerethedays.de/joystick_galerie.htm

[level42]

The Suzo was really a Euro thing I guess. Not only was it used on a load of Euro "general" cabs but they sold LOADS of the home-version.
It was THE standard back then.

I must say that I am bit surprised to see that set-up of the micro-swithces. I had always thought they would be set-up just like the arcade version (so around the center, side-ways, like this:


but then, I never remembering opening the MS version....

The leaf version I have does have the leafs centered around the stick's end. Also, the buttons have "proper" leafs, I mean they look exactly like the arcade one's, but then smaller. There is no PCB inside it.

I have to admit that when I first looked at your pics I thought it was not a real Suzo Etienne. The buttons look so different...but I guess the STC Rotterdam says enough (although it still could be a copy).

Nice hack by the way. I loved doing hacks in those days too. The most seen hack was a switch on the Atari 1050 floppy disk drive to enable writing on the back side of a floppy without having to cut holes. Simple but cool. Of course we did it neatly and installed a red Led to indicate it was in "dangerous" mode

It's surprising but I can't find any pics of my version of the Suzo, so I'll make some myself and post them here...

[Etienne MacGyver]

I have to admit that when I first looked at your pics I thought it was not a real Suzo Etienne. The buttons look so different...but I guess the STC Rotterdam says enough (although it still could be a copy).

As far as i remember the price of that SOB in that time i think its not a copy 

I have used the one that chris is describing too, wich was in some games nice too
i remember the one that i had was beige with brown stick and button, and the button had a microswitch too in that one..

the one on the pic is the only one i still have today..

[level42]

Hehe, I remember clearly paying F 75,- at that time.
With devaluation I guess it equals 75 Euro about now....
At the time I was at school and couldn't afford much, so yes it was a small fortune.

However, after having broken both original Atari 2600 joysticks (and what a pain they brought !) and after that buying a Spectravideo stick (this one:
which broke even SOONER than the original Atari's (!!!) I figured it was a good investment.

I had fallen for the Spectravideo because.....hey I was a kid. It looked very cool, the flight-stick like look. Of course I didn't realize it would suck in any non-flying game (which almost non was;) ). I also thought the suction cups to "stick" it to a table was a good idea. I was wrong on everything of course....

So Etienne, with the Suzo, you didn't play it while holding in your hand ? I did....that's why I find the Wico too large. I guess the user was supposed to put it on a table or something and play that way, but that never worked for me. The Suzo was compact enough for me (even as a kid ).

Took a nice series of pictures to compare the Wico vs. the Suzo.


What I find a little surprising is that the Suzo is actually just as "long"/"deep" as the Wico. The Wico is much wider though (square)...

...and it is MUCH taller:

[level42]

Suzo inside:

This is what started my love for leafs, and it has never stopped:


The base:


Mmmm, funny how memory tricks you sometimes. I thought we had our 2600 earlier than that....but figures don't lie...

Ye olde Suzo logo. That phone number doesn't work anymore


Detail of the button:


Another brilliant feature of this version of the Suzo Competition Pro, extremely short travel leafs :

[level42]

Compare to the Wico:


Not only is the travel much longer, the resistance on the button is also considerably higher....not my cup of tea (tiring on long playing sessions and KILLING on fast shooters..).



The Wico base. Uses longer leafs (that's why they needed the large base).


The base. The Wico is slightly younger (week 27 compared to week 12 for the Suzo. I only bought the Wico (in a set) a couple of years ago.


Compare the travel between Wico and Suzo:




May look like not too much difference on the pics, but it's a WORLD of difference in reality (Think about moving left to right quickly...)

Both the Wico and Suzo are excellent built joysticks. The fact that they are still trouble free after 27 years says enough.  However all the plusses of the Suzo makes it a clear winner.

[level42]

I also have a red-topped Suzo somewhere here that I also bought a couple of years ago. That one has micro-switches. Can't find it right now, but as soon as I do, I'll examine it to look if it matches Etienne's.

[Etienne MacGyver]

You make a complete review of the two sticks in very high detail  

Im impressed  

I did use it most of the time on the table, but also in hand, depending on the game

but just imagine "running" in track n field, and pushing the button on the right moment while holding it in the hand...

that i could only do with the speedking, and only with the Suzo on the table.

That first stick you described with suction cups, i can confirm, it looked handy so it would not move ....  but the practical use proved different, the Suzo moved less on the table  
i mean, you could litteraly "blow" it of the table, that sucktion cups did everything but it did not suck to the table  
so one thing was true about these models, they "suck" 

[level42]

Yeah, the name was correct: The Quickshot was quickly shot.
When it happened I returned it to the seller. It was less than 2 months when it broke (The Atari's got JUST up to over 6 months, which was the warranty for the 2600 in those days  (Not allowed anymore here).
I got a new Quickshot without a problem, but that too was broken (really broken) within about the same time. So I gave up on it....and forked out the cash.

I just calculated that it cost me 0,0076020190962719698351882259928237 per day...... 

(Note that is DUTCH GUILDER cents....not Euro...

[Laschek]

Those were the days.. where you could go and buy a joystick repair kit