Weird 77 paddles

[ianoid]

This paddle pair I got in a lot that was supposedly from an Atari employee has pots that don't stop turning. I can keep turning the paddle continuously. Both in the pair are like this. Once I turn it enough it registers again. For example, I can turn it clockwise, and the paddle will register left to right, then once it comes back around there is a slight click, and then it jumps back to left and goes left to right again. Weird! 

[The Mr. Video]

The only thing I can make of this is that it may be a prototype. This is just speculation, but perhaps the paddle controller was initially supposed to serve the same function that the driving controller does, but Atari later decided to give the paddle controller limited movement because it worked better for games like Breakout and manufacture a separate controller with continuous turning instead.

[+sramirez2008]

I’d keep them as is. Their heavy sixer paddles and if the story is true, they could be one-of-a-kinds. Certainly could have been a prototype from ‘77. 
 

Neat?

Edited October 26, 2020 by sramirez2008

[Steve Guidi]

On 10/26/2020 at 5:46 AM, ianoid said:

For example, I can turn it clockwise, and the paddle will register left to right, then once it comes back around there is a slight click, and then it jumps back to left and goes left to right again. Weird! 

This is solely speculation, but it could be that the potentiometers are damaged so that their hard-stop has worn out.  When I last opened up a potentiometer, I noticed that I could get the wiper to spin continuously (and rejoining the track) if I didn't completely close the case/enclosure.

 

Nevertheless, an interesting find!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

2 hours ago, Steve Guidi said:

This is solely speculation, but it could be that the potentiometers are damaged so that their hard-stop has worn out.  When I last opened up a potentiometer, I noticed that I could get the wiper to spin continuously (and rejoining the track) if I didn't completely close the case/enclosure.

That's the most likely explanation, IMO.

A paddle cannot work like a driving controller, there would be hefty input jumps once each turn.

[ianoid]

Yeah there is a jump as it rotates around back to 0.

 

I would have thought that the pots were damaged if it was just one of them, but it was a matched set that perform identically.

[+Stephen Moss]

You can get pots with 360 degree rotation but they are rare and often expensive.

If they were designed to have a full 360 degree rotation instead of the usual 270, then I would expect you should only get a small jump where if passes from one end of the resistive track to the other. Whereas if they are broken 270 degree pots then there will be a noticeable deadband for those 90 degrees where turning the pot either has not obvious effect or a random effect due to noise as the wiper is not making contact with the resistive track.

 

If they did come from an Atari employee it is possible they may have deliberately removed the end stops for game testing so they could move the player controlled object back to the opposite side of the screen without having to turn them all the way back to the other end.

[ianoid]

There seems to be a dead zone on both, but I didn’t test them using a scope. I suspect they are not the expensive pots you speak of. Still, I find it peculiar that both paddles in the pair are the same, when I’ve never found another pair that even had this characteristic. Either way, I’ll keep them as an oddity. The set came with a couple of other pairs of 77 paddles and neither pair were like this.

[Shawn]

52 minutes ago, ianoid said:

There seems to be a dead zone on both, but I didn’t test them using a scope. I suspect they are not the expensive pots you speak of. Still, I find it peculiar that both paddles in the pair are the same, when I’ve never found another pair that even had this characteristic. Either way, I’ll keep them as an oddity. The set came with a couple of other pairs of 77 paddles and neither pair were like this.

 

Honestly sounds like nothing more than a pair of pots with stripped stoppers.

[+fdr4prez]

4 hours ago, Shawn said:

 

Honestly sounds like nothing more than a pair of pots with stripped stoppers.

I agree; a pair of damaged pots

[alex_79]

I agree. Even with the standard pot, games only use a small portion of the full 270 degree rotation because else it would take multiple frames to read the full range. A 360 degree pot wouldn't have any purpose in this application.