Re: joystick questions

ive been looking at joysticks to buy, and i got a few questions, wondering what some of you guys may have to say.

i really want a competition pro joystick but im a little iffy on the usb ones, anybody use those? i feel like they may not be very sturdy or well build joysticks. would i be better off getting an old amiga comp pro off ebay? i dont have a ton of money either.

I have a Genesis to usb converter, that would work for a joystick made for amiga or atari, right?

the other joysticks ive been looking at are made buy suncom, mainly the TAC-2 or the silk stick. anybody have experiences with either of these 2 joys? are they good for swos? they are pretty reasonably priced on ebay and look cool so im leaning toward a TAC-2 stick unless someone tells me that it wouldnt be a good idea.

any help would be appreciated

ya those gravis pads seem popular, i never used one so i cant see what makes them so special. do you have the one that you can screw a little joystick into the d-pad? is that what makes it good?

just put in my order for my suncom TAC-2 9-pin joystick! hope it serves me well. or at least better than this genesis controller im using.

Playaveli is right. I remember on the original Comp Pro s, it took months and months to get the joystick in optimum condition, as the plastic needed to wear down a bit through gameplay to loosen up the joystick. I bought a USB version and it just wasn t right. Hard to explain exactly, but it was too easy to move, and very clicky when moving in each direction.

This takes a bit of effort, but if you re as old as me you may be too inflexible to adapt to a new joystick and prefer to feel like you re still living in 1990!

The modern USB competition pro joysticks are rubbish - don t feel nice and last about as well as a Quickshot II on Daley Thompson s Decathlon (ie. not well).
However, I found that if you take the base of one of those complete with the circuit board and USB cable it s the same moulding as the original joysticks.

The very best of the original competition pro joysticks were the ones with leaf switches for the directions and the fire buttons - they are indestructable, which is probably why they stopped making them I think sometime in the late 80s and started used crappy microswitches instead. The good thing is you re going to discard the base and lead so it doesn t matter what computer the original joystick was for.

If you can find one of these old leaf switch joysticks you take the base off it and replace it with the base of your (dead) USB one, connect up the connectors and bend the leaf switches until it s comfortable for you you have the ultimate USB joystick for Sensi soccer and it will never break.