Atari Joystick Re-imagined. I call it the Watari

[generatorlabs]

As basic as the classic Atari joystick was designed it still performed pretty well for me. It crossed over from the 2600 to standard issue equipment on my Commodore 64.

I also owned the Classic Wico ball top sticks. I always wished for a joystick with the construction quality of the Wico and the small footprint of the 2600 stick combined.

A co-worker of mine is leaving his post at my office and he is an Atari junkie as well.

He had a number of broken 2600 flashback joysticks. I decided as a "going-away-gift" I would re-engineer his broken gaming hardware.

 

Here is what I came up with. It is a hybrid of an Wico Controller and an Atari controller. I call it the "Watari Controller".

 

I used a basic Mame cabinet Zippy 4 way controller. Not very expensive. Probably under $15.

The Zippy module is too tall to fit in the Atari joystick housing. I took the shaft out and machined it on my lathe.

I shortened the shaft by a little more than 1/4 inch. I machined a new groove for the retaining snap ring as well.

Here you can see the shortened shaft:

I then machined the blue Zippy housing to make it much thinner.

Machining the blue Zippy housing and shortening the shaft gives the proper amount of clearance for the bottom of the shaft to move around freely.

I removed all the stand-offs and protrusions from the Atari joystick (this was a flashback version)

I welded on a small piece of steel to mount the Fire button switch.

The Flashback joystick has a neat, removable retaining ring for the rubber boot, which is removable. Long machine screws are hidden under here to mount the Zippy housing.

I also gave my buddy the option to convert it to the standard Atari stick configuration. Note the steel Zippy shaft. When fully seated you cannot tell that the joystick has been modified.

What gives it away is the nice weight and clicky tactile sounds of the switches as you move and fire.

 

So go bust out those old broken controllers and give them a second life. Make your own Watari stick

 

 

 

 

[Zonie]

Yeah, the way it shoulda been. I have a stock CX40 with a shortened shaft and a red ball on it, plus some "loostening" of the guts. Has worked great for 40 years...

[Flojomojo]

That is the cutest thing. Well done!

 

Too bad there's no room for an full sized arcade style button, too.

[Cynicaster]

Pretty slick!

[MrMaddog]

Not bad...

[0078265317]

Nice

[RamrodHare]

Any chance you would want to make a few of these to sell?

[generatorlabs]

Any chance you would want to make a few of these to sell?

 

My real intention was to offer an alternative to those frustrated with Atari's ageing design.

This little project was done out of love for the platform, not to make money.

And it was done to inspire others to build one over a weekend.

But everything has a price, I guess !!

It would not be a cheap option because the reality is a lot of time & labor is involved.

In hardware you would have:

 

$15.00 for Zippy

$ 3.00 for fire switch

$10-$20 for a decent donor Flashback joystick.

Shipping

 

If someone absolutely sees this as a "I got to have one" item then I would charge $90 labor plus the the cost of the hardware & shipping above.

That would include lathe and machining time, assembly and bench testing.

 

The economics of scale could make the price lower but I don't imagine I will see a line forming to create new joysticks for an 80's era platform