4 out of five joysticks are shit

[memorymoog]

Almost all of my joysticks have failed me. I have 4 of the origional atari joysticks, but each of them have their malfunctions. One wont go down, one right, on one the fire button doesnt respond, and so on... the only joystick that works is this sure fire II. Is there some way to fix these joysticks?

[Charlie_]

Yeah, its easy. Carefully take them apart and use a soft pencil eraser on the board where the joystick parts would make contact.

You will clearly see a color change as they clean up.

Also, you can always go to a store like Funco and pick up used Sega Genesis pads to use with the Atari 2600. They work great.

 

Charlie

[ATARIPITBULL]

I don't know if it will help any, but you can still buy an Atari 2600 joystick repair kit on ebay, or even most radio shack stores have a catalog book that have old atari items still in stock and might have repair kit's still listed.

[memorymoog]

i tried the eraser trick, but it resulted in lackluster results.... the controller works better now, but only about half as good as it should... thanks for the eraser tip anyway!

[Charlie_]

Ben: Your not kidding. I have one controller for my 5200 that is driving me crazy. Last night the plug went bad. I had to swap the whole wire from a "parts" controller. Now I dont know if I put the wires on the right posts of the anaolg "pots" (is that what ya call em?) 2 Nights before another stick i THOUGHT was fine, i couldnt get the guy to let go of a vine in pitfall. I had to replace another analog "pot". You could spend more time fixing controllers on the 5200 than playing it. And to top it all off I was having problems playing games off my multicart. On the title "Atari" screen the game name under the word Atari would have the wrong characters and then never load or load and hang. I think that's a dirty cart port though. I hope it's not my multicart........

 

Charlie

[Charlie_]

you might want to try some rubbing alcohol and a qtip to clean those same contacts. Sounds like they are heavy duty dirty if the eraser only 1/2 worked.

 

Charlie