Hello sprazzi, I just registered to help you (and others who maybe stop by here somday). Enclosed fotos of the internals.
My pcb is a little damaged (by the previous owner) - but it works fine.
Important for you:
The pcb wants the following contacts of the plug in the top row
1 2 4 3 8 6 5 9 7
(Note that 3 and 4 are swapped. They made a mistake annotating them on the pcb.)
You can find the plug pinout easily on the web by searching for: atari joystick pinout
As always make sure to distinguish between plug and socket pinout as they are mirrored.
the plug should be like this:
5 4 3 2 1
9 8 7 6
It should be easy to use a new 9-pin cable. I just changed it myself because as I got this joystick "left" didnt work. First I thought its the micro-switch, but as it turned out it was the cable. I changed it and all is good now.
Hope this helps,
Kind regards from Austria
cordiali saluti d'Austria
Stefan