Have been playing around with my Amiga Forever for a bit and had been using the number keypad for movement.
Decided I would rather get more of an "old school" feel by using a real, actual joystick.
Found the Retrolink USB Atari joystick clone on fleabay at $14-16 and decided to give it a whirl.
Out of the box, it looks just like the old Atari black joystick with a single fire button.
Plugged it into the USB port on my computer and waited for 3-4 minutes for Windows 7 to decide it had the right driver and install it.
Next call up Amiga Forever and pick a game. I chose Faery Tale Adventure just because I really like that game. Set the controller options and away we go!
At first the joystick worked like a charm, albeit a bit noisy.
Fire button is STIFF!!!!! You really have to press down on it!
Joystick itself is okay. Much like the original. However, after a few hours of twisting and jerking back and forth, it seemed like the joystick was getting louder if that is possible. Also noticed the down direction was getting intermittent.
Pulled out my trusty Phillips screwdriver and removed the 4 screws on the bottom of the unit.
Inside, I found a circuit board with 5 "bubble" type contact points. A conductive film is "bubbled" over the other contact and when the joystick is pushed in a direction, a nipple on the bottom of the joystick contacts the bubble causing it to short together with another conductor underneath the bubble.
Pretty rudimentary system, but I'm sure it's cheap to manufacture and relatively durable for light to normal use. For use in a joystick? Not so much!
Heavy yanking on the joystick appears to have damaged the bubble to the point I can no longer go straight down!
On the plus side, if I were to decide to replace the cheap contacts with real momentary contact switches, it would appear I could simply drill out the bubbles and replace with the switches and simply rewire all the necessary contacts. Hmmm...
Anyway, if you're looking for a cheap, simple joystick for LIGHT use, it's not bad.
If, however, you're looking for something that can take a thrashing on a pretty heavy action game, look somewhere else.
My 2 cents!
