mfolls

thanks for the ideas, I will start tonight by testing with the open joysticks while playing missile commanad and making sure the contact points are all working correctly. Has anyone ever done something as simple as putting a piece of real strong tape, such as packing tape, over the worn out plastic piece? I wonder if that would be a fix.

I just bought two 4 switch 2600 systems with 8 original controllers, none of which are working properly, if at all. So, I took some advice from one of the postings on this group: "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." "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." but when I open up my joysticks, what I see is 4 small metal inverted disks that can be pushed down, they are covered by a plastic piece. The joystick handle is plastic and from what I can tell, the joystick plastic presses against the plastic covering the metal disks (disks is the wrong word but I can't think of the right one) and that is how the joystick works. So, I made sure all this was nice and clean but it didn't show any improvement. I think maybe the problem has to do with the plastic that covers the metal disks actuall being worn down in some spots. Can anyone help me with this? This is an awesome message board and I have really enjoyed reading all the posts. I look forward to playing the games I just got but am really bummed about these joysticks! Thanks for any help, Mike