What's The Worst 2600 Joystick?

[Rex Dart]

I hate those cheap-ass flightsticks with the button on top that presses a long post into the actual button way down on the PCB in the base. Soooooo cheap feeling.

Also, the standard 2600 controller. I've got a dozen and they're all broken. So far, my experience with them has been... poor.

[rexreed]

Worst? Any stick that just had the misfortune of being used to play Decathlon or Track and Field! Those games killed every stick I owned.

[disjaukifa]

The stock 7800 stick on the 2600

[ewbray]

I flew military helicopters during my stint in the U. S. Army and our "cyclic" control had a trim button on its very top just like the Radio Shack "Super Stick"; we used our thumbs while flying to control the aircraft's trim, so it was second nature for us to be able to change direction of the aircraft and control the aircrafts trim at the same time. On the gunship versions of the helicopters that same button control was switched to the fire the rockets. So for aviation buffs that was the "natural" place to place a "fire" button. You civilians just didn't know what was military protocol!

 

I rewired a couple of Radio Shack "Super Sticks" back in the mid 1980s (costs back then were $9.95 each) when my original pair of Texas Instruments joysticks with surface printed foil-to-foil on plastic electrical contacts wore out. I just removed the wires from the Texas Instruments joysticks and added the two "Super Sticks" as the replacements.

 

These still function correctly to this day some 30+ years later because they contain rudimentary aluminum micro-switches instead of surface printed foil-to-foil on plastic contacts! (P.S. I remember you had to soldier five (5) 1N914 diodes into each base to have them function correctly)

 

https://groups.yahoo.com/.../TI9.../photos/albums/1868089068 … .. .

 

You can also find a schematic and article in MICROpendium on page 37 http://ftp.whtech.com/magazines/micropendium/mp960708.pdf

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by ewbray

[JBerel]

You can't call this a flight stick, so it has to be up there as one of the most abysmal, embarrassing abominations ever to assault a gamer.

 

[Deteacher]

For me, it was the Tac-2 controller because I hated that grinding it would do if you didn't center the stick before changing directions. It was like nails on a chalkboard to me. Ugh.

[imstarryeyed]

For me it is very simple... This was the first stick I got with my Vic 20 used from my fathers coworker.

 

This thing really earns my name for it.. the Video Turd.. it is way to skinny to be stable, the rubber boot tore after like 1 week and the fire button almost had no tactile feel. This garbage did everything wrong and made sure to make any game you are playing, terrible and frustrating..

 

 

[bigfriendly]

 

My older brother got me two of these Pointmasters for my 12th or 13th birthday. They looked cool but they just didn't work well at all. The stick had way to much give in it. Using them was an incredible handicap compared to the standard 2600 joystick. The only good thing about them was that they had a much longer cord than the regular 2600 sticks.

Edited May 2, 2019 by bigfriendly

[Agamon]

How about that A77? It breaks if you stare it for too long...

[jaybird3rd]

My older brother got me two of these Pointmasters for my 12th or 13th birthday. They looked cool but they just didn't work well at all. The stick had way to much give in it. Using them was an incredible handicap compared to the standard 2600 joystick. The only good thing about them was that they had a much longer cord than the regular 2600 sticks.

Those Pointmaster sticks would be a close second for me, but if I had to choose the very worst joystick for the 2600, it would have to be the Gemini Gemstik (as seen here). Just an incredibly cheap, janky, creaky, flimsy joystick. What really irked me about it is that, in the waning days of Atari's mainstream prominence, it was about the only Atari-compatible joystick that my local department stores still carried. So, I had to either stick with my worn CX-40 with a touchy cable and a cracked handle, or settle for a Gemstik. Yuck.

 

I'm surprised to see that so many people hated the 500XJ. I always found it to be a pretty solid controller. Its biggest problem is that it was difficult to service: you had to peel off the front decal to get it apart, and it never seems to go back together quite right. I also appreciated Kraft's joysticks: the Starmaster was my favorite of the two-button grip-style joysticks, and the Mazemaster had a switchable restrictor for four-way games.

[Mister-VCS]

AMIGA PowerStick

[toiletunes]

The Flashback series replica joysticks. After I snapped the stick off a Flashback 2,I've been very wary of any screw in replicas.

[toddtmw]

Le Stick. Worst Stick ever. I used it once and was like, hard pass.