Atari Testing Device, What is it?

[Hemmer]

I Found this at a garage sale this past weekend.

It seems to test The Atari Joysticks.

I cant seem to find any mention of it anywhere on the internet.

Is this a factory tool or homebuilt?

[Cebus Capucinis]

Appears to be a home-built tester. Is it just a voltmeter with some microswitch testers or something? I'm guessing the lights light up for the direction you push the joystick with the light on the bottom for fire button?

[Rybags]

Maybe the voltmeter does the paddles - although you'd probably need a switch to choose which one's being tested.

[Hemmer]

Its a VU meter like they use in Audio equipment.

Have you seen anything like it before?

Must've tested alot of Joysticks to need to build one of these....

[Hemmer]

The Old lady I bought it from knew nothing about it, it belonged to her deceased brother and she was clearing out his stuff.Didnt have any other Atari stuff wich I though was strange....

[tetrode kink]

Its a VU meter like they use in Audio equipment.

Have you seen anything like it before?

Must've tested alot of Joysticks to need to build one of these....

It's a VU meter in markings only. Inside it's just a needle that reacts to voltage applied to its coil. In other words, by itself a meter is just a meter, and it was probably just one that the builder had laying around. If the builder intended it to test paddles, yeah, there should also be a switch. Lacking a switch on that box, maybe it was an ersatz voltage meter for the wall-wart, making it not only a controller tester but a wall-wart tester?

 

Only one way to find out. Pop the screws on that puppy and show us the guts!

 

-tet

Edited June 22, 2010 by tetrode kink

[Curt Vendel]

Probably built by an independent service center to test controllers for customers.

 

I Found this at a garage sale this past weekend.

It seems to test The Atari Joysticks.

I cant seem to find any mention of it anywhere on the internet.

Is this a factory tool or homebuilt?

[Hemmer]

Here are some Pics of the inside.

Definatly Home Made.

I Still Haven't tried it out yet.

I bet your right Curt.

I Cracked this thing open and all I could smell was Stale cigarettes.......gross.

[Hemmer]

I got it Working tonight.

The Red light at the bottom indicates power to the unit.

The orange LED lights up for the "button"

The 4 Red LED are directional

and the Meter is used for the Dial Control.

 

I seem to have 1 malfuntioning Coleco Gemini Controller.......

Good thing I have the tester.......

[Video]

Looks like one I built to test controllers way back. But the orange box is cool, wonder where that came from?

[Retro Rogue]

Looks like one I built to test controllers way back. But the orange box is cool, wonder where that came from?

 

Probably a radio shack years ago. Looks like a generic project box.

[JingleJoe]

That is fantastic! For the same tests I use a much lower-tech version of that device: An LED connected to a battery and two wires which I jam into the pin sockets I want to test

 

This little contraption is brilliant though, I'd love to get my hands on one

[tetrode kink]

Looks like one I built to test controllers way back. But the orange box is cool, wonder where that came from?

 

Probably a radio shack years ago. Looks like a generic project box.

OMG I just realized something.

 

First of all, I agree with 'fu, it's your basic generic project box.

 

It just dawned on me that that box looks exactly like the box I used eons ago to [try to] re-case my Pocket Repeat (Radio Shack knockoff of Simon), except the box I used was blue. I wanted to re-case the game because the original buttons bounced regularly. They were the same metal dome switches as in an original Atari joystick, BTW. Apparently there wasn't enough (any?) debounce in the circuit/program design. It was so freakin' maddening to get high in a sequence only to have the game raspberry me because it thought I pressed a button twice when it was really just switch bounce. One time I got so pissed at it I taught that thing the true meaning of "bounce:" I bounced it off the wall! You can bet that game never raspberried me again, but only because I killed it! Busted it up real good.

 

The game had the last laugh, though, because it was such a good game (when it worked right) that I bought another one! It had the bounce problem too so my last recourse was to try to build a box for its guts and put better buttons in it. The result looked remarkably like that joystick tester except there were only four LEDs and four pushbuttons instead of the meter. I got it to work but my buttons bounced as badly as the originals so I gave up on it.

 

Too bad; if it weren't for those damn dome switches (or lack of bounce mitigation) it would have been the best version of Simon made, IMHO. It was quite fun to play when it wasn't eliciting sudden (yet brief) fits of violent, expletive-punctuated rage from an otherwise perfectly well-adjusted teenager... It was inexpensively built (just one chip and a few support components, four LEDs, power switch, 9V battery contacts and dome switches on a small board) and sold (I think it was less than $10). The buttons were formed by cutouts in the plastic case over the domes. Great bang for the buck; it had several repeat/replay features and two game variations. I'll bet RS sold a bazillion of them. A few years later they put out a redesigned version with beautiful button action but the program was flawed and it just wasn't fun to play.

 

*sigh*

 

I apologize for derailing the topic but I just had to get that out of my system. I really hated loved that game.

 

-tet

Edited June 26, 2010 by tetrode kink

[A.J. Franzman]

Putting a ceramic disc capacitor of 100nF (104) or so across each switch would really cut down the bounce problem.