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Keywords
Atari, Atari standard, 1980s, joysticks, history of the everyday, object research, plastics, museum, Finnish Museum of Games, exhibition, Joy of Sticks, game controller, Consumer electronics, Bodily technique

The Joy of Sticks

Researching the History of Game Controllers That Used the Atari Standard

Mikko Heinonen and Niklas Nylund (Finnish Museum of Games)

Introduction

What is the historical significance of a consumer product that was, in most cases, designed to be inexpensive and disposable when no one really knew how long the product would remain in use? How do you catalog and exhibit such items to showcase them while also relying on unofficial sources that are mostly maintained by hobbyists? Or, as a friend put it in an instant message while we were digging up information on yet another unknown model: “Imagine that you’re just trying to sell cheap plastic junk to children, and then forty years later, someone comes along and takes it all seriously.”

Gaming joysticks are underresearched, with very little scholarship available on the history of joystick-type game controllers. Even the background of some of the most popular models remains murky. While game controllers as a whole have been dealt with in books such as Nick Hall and John Ellis’s Hands on Media History and David Parisi’s Archaeologies of Touch, neither of them specifically engages with joystick-type game controllers.1 Controllers are necessary for the gameplay experience, but they have been “largely unreflected on by gamers and in gaming literature,” and this concerns old joysticks even more than later console controllers from the first decade of the twenty-first century.2

This neglect is surprising since third-party joysticks were a sizable market for several years in the 1980s and early 1990s, extending from Atari’s domination of the video game market to when game consoles from Nintendo, Sega, and Sony as well as IBM PC–compatible computers finally took over the digital entertainment sphere. Thus, an entire industry has been more or less forgotten and its history could be lost. Consider, for example, that the National Museum of American History gives the date of manufacture for the Suncom TAC-2 joystick as “around 1984,” while ample evidence shows that this model was introduced in 1983. There is reason enough to seriously consider joystick history right now, while we are still able to trace most of the products back to their origins.3

While it would be easy to make simplistic and crass Freudian observations about joysticks and the act of manipulating them, how we control machines and their content does matter and is also worthy of its own history.4 As Ellis and Hall note, “Hands on history is a central method in the overdue rethinking of the reciprocal relationship between humanity and the technologies it creates.”5 That is, the relationship between humans and computers is not strictly audiovisual but rather a haptic and tactile process requiring our whole bodies. Controllers are also widely highly visible, and modern console controllers have become extensions and material stand-ins for the console brands they represent. The design and physicality of a Sony PlayStation controller is important, as the controller is a “material and physical signifier” of the brand as a whole, and the controller’s consistent design functions as a stabilizing force in console design and branding.6

Wanda Strauven’s media-archaeological reading of touchscreens and their use suggests that scholars should focus more on the concrete encounters between computers and humans—video games and their players.7 Controllers mediate these encounters, which in turn produce meaning for their participants. There are of course numerous differences between the touchscreen-dominated modern media climate and the very physicality of joystick controllers, as every controller brings with it a particular set of bodily techniques for interacting with the controller; still, both input devices function as gateways into the visual-media climate of today, and their role as a mediator is worthy of study. The concept of “bodily interface” highlights this interconnectedness, and while joysticks are no longer at the forefront of controller evolution, they, like all controllers, have their unique bodily affordances and “gestural language.”8

This essay is based on research conducted for the exhibition The Joy of Sticks, which was on display at the Finnish Museum of Games in Tampere, Finland, between February and December 2023. While the exhibition featured controllers up to the present day, this article focuses on digital joysticks that incorporate the Atari standard.9 These were the simplest and most common game controllers, and their design made them easy to duplicate without infringing on patents. As a result, the market was quickly flooded with third-party controllers to replace the ones Atari shipped with their Video Computer System (VCS) game console (later known as the Atari 2600). Some of them were better in terms of quality and ergonomics than the original Atari controllers, while others were not. Manufacturers also introduced various gimmicks to market their own controllers; some were useful, but others were not.

Joysticks are becoming obsolete, so younger museum visitors no longer have firsthand experiences. As Hall and Elli note, a hands-on approach where visitors can try out joysticks themselves helps them to understand the affordances that joysticks provide.10 To encourage this learning experience, a hands-on exhibit featuring an Atari CX40 joystick running the two-player game Surround (1977) was provided as part of the Joy of Sticks exhibition.11 While such a hands-on station would not cover all the possible versions and manufacturers, it provides an understanding of how an Atari joystick feels, what bodily techniques it requires, and how it differs from touchscreens and modern game controllers.

Figure 1

Atari standard joysticks come in all shapes and sizes. (Image courtesy Saarni Säilynoja, Vapriikki Photo Archives, Tampere, Finland)

Atari-standard joysticks are an important part of the history of personal computing and home video gaming. These cheaply made consumer products were the primary means of playing video games in the 1970s and 1980s, and, therefore, they are something many people recall with nostalgia.12 In this Materials piece, we will not only provide a historical overview of the various Atari-standard controllers but also reflect on the role of controllers within the larger framework of computer-use culture and its heritagization.13 We are especially interested in improving the understanding of the tension between the ephemerality of joysticks as everyday consumerist material culture and the marginalized status of joysticks in the history of computing.14

The digital joystick was an everyday object to hobbyists who used early game consoles and home computers. As such, they carry a sense of nostalgia to many, and almost every middle-aged hobbyist has their own favorite controller from this era. Many also remember taking these primitive electronic devices apart and repairing them. In view of this nostalgia, it came as a surprise during the research conducted for the exhibition that not much is known about companies like Suncom and Coin Controls that were the original manufacturers and marketers of these products. It was also common to sell the same product under different names in different countries as well as to rebrand joysticks for packaging with computer systems. The exhibition even featured controllers where neither the brand nor the manufacturer was known.

This lack of reliable modern sources and general documentation on joystick controllers had specific implications for our research. In order to find information on the exhibits, we had to refer to advertising and short articles in contemporary magazines (where the Internet Archive once again proved immensely valuable) as well as hobbyist websites that had been created for reasons of nostalgia.15 This resulted in a massive variation in terms of how authentic the available information was. Archival sources were supplemented, but also verified, by looking at the joysticks themselves, including their circuits, wiring diagrams, and components, to verify the similarities or lack thereof between the models of different manufacturers.

While it might be easy to dismiss joysticks as “cheap plastic junk” without any historical significance, the Joy of Sticks exhibition shows that they can be of interest to museums, their visitors, and various research disciplines. Building the exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Games helped us realize how important everyday material objects can be for making sense of the world. Many museum visitors remarked that they remembered the various joystick models shown in the exhibition, which had them reminiscing about life in general. In more theoretical terms, old joysticks, although disconnected “from their individual histories” and “denaturalised through the passing of time,” still allowed museum visitors to access a “shared history of the everyday.”16

While joysticks effectively reveal “the temporality of daily life,” their nature as everyday objects also helps us perceive the tensions “between the local and global, the habitual and fashionable, the individual and social.”17 Our case studies show what kinds of qualities Atari-standard joysticks share with each other, but also how they differ from each other. While most joysticks can fairly be described as cheap plastic junk, there were also exceptions. Some joysticks are still remembered for their innovative technological features, durability, or comfort, or the way branding set them apart from competitors. Many of those playing games in the 1980s also remember which models were easy to repair with the DIY methods and tools available for young children at the time.

The Standard Is Born

Magnavox Odyssey, the world’s first game console, entered the market in 1972 with a controller that had three rotating dials: one for the vertical direction, another for the horizontal, and a third for the curve of your shot.18 The Odyssey was fairly successful, but the mass adoption of TV games did not start until a few years later. The first-generation home video consoles were, in practical terms, clones of the arcade game Pong and most often used a single rotating dial, also known as a potentiometer. This type of input device was sufficient for moving the paddle up and down the screen. A button to serve the ball was also commonly used.

Over the course of the 1970s, TV games gradually became more complex, and simple joysticks and directional pads were added to better guide the characters around the screen. The joystick designs commonly used two potentiometers, one for up and down and another for left and right, and in most cases, they were affixed to the device or had nondetachable cables. However, the basic design of the joystick itself predates digital devices and video games: it was originally designed for aircraft controls.19

The release of the Atari VCS (later known as the Atari 2600) in 1977 may be considered a pivotal moment for the controller industry. The VCS had game controllers connected with 9-pin cables and a fairly simple pinout that used one wire for one signal. The controllers were designed to be detachable in order to make them easy to switch according to the needs of the game. Pong-style paddle controllers were available for two-way analog control, but it was the joystick controller that was lauded for its versatility. The operating principle was clear: simply grounding the pin in question achieved the various directions and fire function. This design is referred to as a digital joystick—every control is either on or off, or 1 or 0, whereas an analog potentiometer can have several values within a specific range. The sticks had a more accurate feel than the earlier analog joysticks that had a longer range of movement. This made them suitable for fast-paced action games requiring quick inputs.

Atari entered the growing home-computer market by introducing the Atari 400 and Atari 800 microcomputers in 1979. They were also designed with similar 9-pin joystick connectors to gain access to the game controllers already available for the 2600.

Atari had patented the basic design of the game controller, but it had no exclusive right to the connector or pinout itself. When the popularity of the Atari 2600 rapidly increased in the early 1980s due to the release of games such as the successful Space Invaders, controllers from third-party manufacturers entered the market. Electronic Games, the first US magazine dedicated to video games, began to feature advertising for replacement joysticks in its June 1982 issue.20

Figure 2

Atari CX10 (left) and CX40 (right) set the standard for early home computer joysticks. (Image courtesy Christina Laakso, Tampere Historical Museums, Finland)

The Atari system reached a critical mass that could support third-party replacements for Atari-standard joysticks, and the simple connection made them easy to manufacture. Initially, most third-party controllers were little more than copies of the original Atari CX40 joysticks. Very soon, however, manufacturers also started to introduce new and original products, with many being advertised as improvements over the original Atari joystick. Indeed, the June 1982 issue of Electronic Games advertised standard Atari joysticks at $10.95; the G.A.M.E.S. Super Joystick at $34.95 with a 1-year warranty; and the Datasoft LeStick, an innovative design that had no base, for $39.95.21

When Atari’s rival, Commodore Business Machines, introduced the VIC-20 home computer in 1981 (1980 in Japan), it also had an Atari-standard game-controller port. Commodore additionally manufactured a clone of the Atari CX40 to sell with its computer, calling it the VIC-20 Joystick.22 However, a court ruling found that Commodore’s design breached Atari’s patents and prohibited its sales, so the company introduced a redesign with the model designation 1311.23 The operating principle remained the same; the changes were merely cosmetic. Later, when the Commodore 64 (C64) followed in VIC-20’s footsteps, the Atari connectors were kept in and Commodore continued to sell its own joysticks as accessories. The considerable success of the C64 alone would have been enough to guarantee years of profitable sales for manufacturers of game controllers, but it was far from the only home computer to utilize the Atari connector.

This made the Atari connector the de facto standard for connecting game controllers to the home computers of the 1980s. It made sense for designers to choose a connector type that already had an abundance of accessories available. Even though the wiring differed slightly among different platforms, the basic one-button, four-direction joystick would more or less work in all computer models. Home computers with the MSX standard, for example, used two fire buttons, but the nine pins on the connector were sufficient for that purpose—and they could also support mice and light pens, for example.24 The downside was that inexperienced users could break their device by connecting an incompatible controller. In the spirit of the early microcomputing of the 1980s, however, this was commonly attributed to user error.

The sun finally set on Atari-standard joysticks in the early 1990s with the discontinuation of the final hobbyist home-computer models, such as the Commodore Amiga 1200 and Atari Falcon030, which came with Atari-type connectors and had software designed for the standard controllers.25 The connector type itself lived on for a while longer on game consoles such as the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) which, while still using the familiar 9-pin connector, mostly abandoned the one-wire-per-signal setup in favor of signal multiplexing in order to add more functionality.26 However, Sega controllers could still be used in a limited capacity even with the Atari 2600.

In the following, we will look at a number of individual joystick controllers as individual case studies. Through them, we examine the development of the joystick controller and demonstrate the difficulty of researching this topic.

Case Study: Atari CX10 and CX40

When the Atari VCS (2600) was launched in 1977, it came with the CX10 game controller, which Atari patented under US Patent 4124787.27 However, it was replaced only one year later with the externally similar CX40 model that, nevertheless, had a radically redesigned interior. The rationale for this can be found in Atari’s patent for the new design: US Patent 4349708 states that “such joysticks have been found to be prone to defects in the assembly process, failure in the home environment, and are relatively expensive to construct.”28

The printed circuit board inside the CX40 is much simpler than the one in the CX10. It consists of metal contact strips with concave metal cups on top. They are held in place by a layer of tape. When the pin at the bottom of the joystick presses on the cup, it buckles and joins the connectors. This design is commonly known as a membrane switch. Meanwhile, the CX10 used metal strips with a spring-loaded plastic mechanism on top.

Figure 3

While externally similar, the Atari CX10 and CX40 differ in terms of internal design. (Image courtesy Christina Laakso, Tampere Historical Museums, Finland)

The CX40 was cheap to manufacture but not very durable.29 Metal fatigue made the membranes come loose over time, and the tape holding the arrangement in place was not designed for extended use. It could be argued that this, in turn, created a market for third-party joysticks that could replace, or even improve upon, the Atari design.

Case Study: Spectravideo QuickShot I

The US company SpectraVision developed and published games for the Atari 2600, the VIC-20, and the ColecoVision game console. Due to a name dispute, the company soon changed its name to Spectravideo International.30

The Spectravideo QuickShot I, introduced in 1982 and then known simply as the QuickShot, was granted a patent for its handle design,31 and it is referred to as “the world’s first ergonomic joystick.”32 While it has a more contoured design than the Atari CX40 and a fire button has been added to the end of the stick, it is technically very close to the Atari and features similar membrane switches.

Figure 4

The QuickShot is technically very close to the Atari CX40. (Image courtesy Christina Laakso, Tampere Historical Museums, Finland)

The original Spectravideo brand ceased operations in the US in 1985, but other owners continued to sell the QuickShot line of joysticks well into the 1990s.33 They were priced competitively, which made them an attractive option for players with limited means, even if their quality left something to be desired. Similar controllers were also later sold under the QuickJoy brand.

Case Study: Suncom Technologies TAC-2

The US company Suncom Technologies was one of the first manufacturers to go beyond copying Atari’s game controllers. The best-known product from their extensive range was probably the TAC-2 (Totally Accurate Controller).

Introduced in 1983, the TAC-2 uses a distinctive switch design that can also be found in a few other Suncom models.34 The ground wire is connected to a metal rod inside the control stick that has a metal ball at the end. Each direction corresponds to a metal plate at the edges of the stick’s travel. When the ball head hits the plates, it connects the pins to engage a direction. This results in short travel that is especially suited for fast-paced games. Another interesting feature is that centering is achieved by means of a rubber shaft that is, in fact, the valve stem from a vehicle tire: its part number remains visible below the metal plate at the bottom.

Figure 5

The TAC-2 became the gold standard for joysticks in Northern Europe. (Image courtesy Christina Laakso, Tampere Historical Museums, Finland)

The TAC-2 is fondly remembered among computer hobbyists in Northern Europe, in particular. Facebook posts suggest that North American Atari 2600 players seem to have more nostalgia for the Slik Stik, which has a similar but smaller design.35 Compared to the traditional membrane switches, Suncom’s design is more durable and can be maintained for a long time. There were at least three versions of this controller that can be identified by the markings on the case: “Made in USA,” “Made in Hong Kong,” and “Made in China.” Compared to the original models, the final low-cost versions had a substantially weaker construction since they used a plastic shaft for the top part.

Case Study: Wico the Boss

Wico was an early American manufacturer of Atari-compatible joysticks. With their high quality Wico sticks stood apart from Atari products, as the Wico design used leaf switches similar to those in the arcade machines of the time.36 In a leaf switch, a plastic pin pushes the metal leaves together in order to connect a direction. Compared to the inexpensive membrane switch held in place by plastic tape, this structure is more durable by some margin. It is not exceptional for a Wico controller from the early 1980s to work today without requiring any special maintenance.

Figure 6

Wico’s “The Boss” stands apart due to the high quality of its components. (Image courtesy Christina Laakso, Tampere Historical Museums)

The downside was the controller’s expense: a Wico controller cost around thirty dollars, which was several times the price of the Atari CX40.37 The Boss was one of the models Wico sold in 1983 alongside the Red Ball and Bat Handle variants; Electronic Fun with Computers and Games refers to it as “popularly-priced,” which suggests a lower price point than the other Wico models.38 Nevertheless, the mechanical design was similar in terms of durability. It features a contoured grip and a grey/black color scheme instead of the more usual black/red.

Case Study: Newport Controls ProStick II

While conducting research for the exhibition, we ran a search on “Atari joystick” on eBay and encountered something we had never seen before: the ProStick II, which commanded a fairly high price. Further research revealed a story in the June 1983 issue of Compute! magazine that introduced the new controller from Newport Controls, a subsidiary of Cal-Tron Corporation, which remains in operation today and specializes in plastic injection-molded parts.39 We also found a number of forum and blog posts praising the joystick as one of the best Atari controllers.40

The ProStick II retailed at $24.95, two and a half times the cost of the Atari CX40, and came with a five-year limited warranty. The same company had previously manufactured the G.A.M.E.S. Super Joystick referred to earlier, which retailed for more than thirty dollars in 1982.41

However, June 1983 was not a good time to launch a new high-end joystick controller for Atari games. By September of the same year, the North American video game market had crashed and Atari was dumping its unsold stock in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Newport Controls launched only one more controller, the ProStick III, a variant of the ProStick II compatible with the ColecoVision game console, before selling off its remaining stock to Ramcharged Computers in Cleveland, Ohio.42

Case Study: Discwasher PointMaster

Discwasher Inc. of Columbia, Missouri, manufactured products for—as the name implies—cleaning records. It developed a product for this purpose that was popular throughout the 1970s, and in 1982, the company was sold to Jensen. Following this, the Discwasher brand entered the video game/computer market. True to form, one of their products was a disk-drive cleaner.43

The company released at least three joystick-related products: the PointMaster Fire Control, which was a “constant fire adapter” for any joystick; the PointMaster joystick itself; and the PointMaster Pro, which combined these two products into one model that featured automatic fire.44

While the design of the PointMaster looks impressive, and it was advertised as a “competition joystick,” it is technically little more than a clone of the Atari CX40’s basic design.45

From the perspective of our research, the PointMaster was interesting because we had never encountered this model in Finland, and the one we had on display had been purchased on eBay and imported from the United States. Meanwhile, its general availability on eBay suggests that it had been very popular at one point, making it one of the few more affordable joystick models that was never imported.46

Case Study: Coin Controls Competition Pro

The Competition Pro is one of the best-known joystick controllers by visual appearance alone; in fact, its likeness has been commonly used as an icon for game software. It also demonstrates how fragmented the controller industry is, especially when viewed nearly four decades later.

In all likelihood, the Competition Pro was originally designed by Coin Controls Ltd., a manufacturer of coin mechanisms and other parts for vending machines and coin-operated equipment located in the United Kingdom and sold by Dynamics Marketing.47 The most popular variant is the Competition Pro 5000, which uses closed microswitches that are common in industrial applications as well as in arcade machines.48 They are installed in the top part of the controller body, with a metal pin in the middle. As these are industry-standard switches, they are easy to replace when worn. This makes the controller extremely durable. The industrial switches will also last for millions of engagements. Fire buttons use a similar leaf-switch mechanism as in the Wico products, for example.

Figure 7

The Competition Pro was sold under many different brand names, such as Prof Competition 5000 and Euromax Professional. (Image courtesy Christina Laakso, Tampere Historical Museums, Finland)

Competition Pro controllers were manufactured and distributed by several different companies in different countries and regions. For example, the Dutch company Suzo manufactured it as the Prof Competition 5000, but this Dutch-built version was also advertised in the UK press as the Euromax Professional.49 Suzo later sold a similar-looking controller known as the Prof Competition 9000; however, it used cheaper and smaller microswitches and a low-cost fire-button implementation.

Computer accessories manufacturer Speedlink also built and marketed its own Competition Pro Retro version together with the German Individual Computers in the first decade of the 2000s. Even though it was based on the later Competition Pro Star model and was not as robust as its predecessor, the Competition Pro Retro was notable for being the first serially manufactured Atari-standard joystick in nearly a decade.

Case Study: Commodore VG-200AQ

Commodore made its first Atari-compatible controller in the early 1980s, and it was followed by a few other original designs. In Finland, however, a variety of controllers were sold under the Commodore name—or at least an affiliation thereto. Timo Eskeli, who worked as a product manager for PCI-Data, the Finnish importer of Commodore products, told Janne Sirén in a 2022 Skrolli magazine interview that controllers were shipped “from the Far East by the container.”50 Then, packaging was designed for them and approved by Commodore; however, Commodore’s management at the time, who were also interviewed for the same article, were not quite sure who approved the packaging or whether any royalties should have been paid.

Figure 8

The Commodore VG-200AQ was only sold under the Commodore brand in Finland. (Image courtesy Christina Laakso, Tampere Historical Museums, Finland)

The most common of the Commodore-style controllers in the late 1980s is the VG-200AQ, shown here (fig. 8), which was marketed in the UK as the Cheetah Mach 1, for example.51 As a product, it was positioned in the lower-middle class and featured inexpensive, exposed microswitches similar to the QuickShot II Turbo, for example.

Discussion: The Significance of Joystick History

The Joy of Sticks exhibition showed us many things about the importance of joysticks for game museums and game research. While research on hands-on museum exhibits is an established subfield in museology, putting the hands-on controllers on display in museum display cases puts an interesting twist on the topic. In this case, hands-on technology becomes the focus of the exhibition, instead of being the controller by which tech is accessed. Still, this is nothing unique for museums, since even archaeological exhibits feature tools and objects that visitors can observe without touching, and whose bodily techniques they can imagine without actually handling the objects.

Echoing Parisi, it is interesting how the role of controllers has changed over time. While modern console controllers can be thought of as signifiers of the brands they represent, Atari-standard joysticks were seldom branded by a particular company for a particular machine. Instead, they were interchangeable and might be used with several different consoles and home computers. Still, the sheer existence of Atari-standard joysticks as a concept, although the joysticks themselves were made by numerous manufacturers and brands, can be thought of as a stabilizing force in the evolution of play from late 1970s consoles to early 1990s powerful home computers. Machines changed, but the bodily techniques for manipulating them stayed the same.

While the standard endured for over fifteen years, the actual market was in constant flux. Because of the fleeting and chaotic nature of the joystick market, local idiosyncrasies play a much more important role than in a market with more established brand identities. Thus, it was possible to buy allegedly official Commodore joysticks in Finland at a time when none were available in other markets. At the same time, many joystick models that were commonly sold in the United States were never exported to Europe or Finland. The transgressive, lawless nature of the local home-computer markets produced rifts and instabilities into otherwise clearly defined brand identities. Perhaps this lawless market shares similarities with the ephemerality or even randomness that can be observed in the counter histories of the pirate game market.

We noticed how speculation became an integral part of our research, since authorized and official sources were difficult to find for all the joysticks on display. Instead, we had to piece together information from ephemeral sources such as advertisements (which were often contradictory and vague) and patent applications, but also from oral histories and online reminiscence as well as object research of the joysticks themselves.52 An interesting characteristic is that object research of joysticks requires a degree of familiarity with their technology. This kind of technological object research can provide hints about the background, manufacture, and use of joysticks simply by looking at their components and schematics, and so a complete history of joysticks is probably impossible to write without having knowledge of this kind.

It is also interesting to note how joysticks change from technological artefacts to physical objects through the passing of time, and how this change is negotiated. Because of rapid changes in technology, Atari-standard joysticks are metamorphosing into mere physical objects that are more interesting for their design aspects than their technical capabilities, while visitors simultaneously reminisce about their technical capabilities and durability. Is a joystick that sits in a display case still a joystick even when it is not used, or does it rather become a symbol of past technology or a token of the play sessions that were?

Rapid technological advancement has made Atari-standard joysticks obsolete; the introduction of additional controls has necessitated a shift toward console controllers with multiple action buttons like the Xbox controller, while simpler games are commonly played on a touchscreen. Because of this, Atari-standard joysticks are not usable anymore except in a retro-gaming context. Consumers have been forced to abandon Atari joysticks, but since the quality of their electronics has for the most part been poor from the outset, the attachment that visitors have to them is not necessarily tied to their technical quality. Instead, the interest in old joysticks has aesthetic and nostalgic factors, but also depends on their sheer alienness when compared with our modern bodily techniques and gestural languages.

With their unique bodily techniques and gestural languages, controllers differ from each other. The disparity between the touchscreen-dominated modern media climate and the very physicality of joystick controllers has changed media use over the past decade, perhaps more than the actual audiovisual elements being manipulated. The feel of using controllers like the Nintendo Wii Remote or the guitar controllers for the Guitar Hero games, but also modern console controllers like the Xbox controller, is very different from the feel of using an Atari-standard joystick. Perhaps, then, our interest in joysticks is primarily fueled by a reflexive understanding of how their gestural language is so profoundly distinct from the currently ubiquitous touchscreens, and this difference may possibly be discerned even without actually using them.

This takes us beyond the history of joysticks into more philosophical terrain and quite eloquently shows why the everyday and fleeting materiality of joysticks is so fascinating. While the joysticks themselves have not been considered monuments or permanent fixtures in the world, their very ephemerality and everydayness help us make sense of everyday life and values by observing and exhibiting them. For us, it has become clear that joysticks matter, not in spite of their cheapness and everydayness but rather because of them.

Footnotes

1. ^ Nick Hall and John Ellis, eds., Hands on Media History: A New Methodology in the Humanities and Social Sciences (New York: Routledge, 2019), https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.4324/9781351247412; and David Parisi, Archaeologies of Touch: Interfacing with Haptics from Electricity to Computing (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018), https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.5749/j.ctt20mvgvz.

2. ^ Graeme Kirkpatrick, “Controller, Hand, Screen: Aesthetic Form in the Computer Game,” Games and Culture 4, no. 2 (2008): 130, https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.1177/1555412008325484.

3. ^ “Suncom TAC-2 Joystick,” National Museum of American History, accessed September 27, 2024, https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_1297185.

4. ^ Wanda Strauven, Touchscreen Archaeology: Tracing Histories of Hands-On Media Practices (Lüneburg, Germany: Meson Press, 2021), 20, https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.14619/1860.

5. ^ Hall and Ellis, Hands on Media History, 1.

6. ^ David Parisi, “A Counterrevolution in the Hands: The Console Controller as an Ergonomic Branding Mechanism,” Journal of Game Criticism 2, no. 1 (2015): 3.

7. ^ Strauven, Touchscreen Archaeology.

8. ^ David Parisi, “Game Interfaces as Bodily Techniques,” in Gaming and Simulations: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications, ed. Information Resources Management Association (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2011), 1033–47, https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.4018/978-1-60960-195-9.ch409.

9. ^ Game controllers for IBM PC–compatible computers evolved along a different path. They typically used analog game controllers with potentiometers. That said, IBM PC compatibles were a niche gaming platform throughout most of the 1980s and often used the keyboard as a game controller. Their joystick controllers were mostly used for flight simulators and similar titles.

10. ^ Hall and Ellis, Hands on Media History, 15.

11. ^ The joystick was running Bradley Kodan’s lifetime upgrade available at Atari, Best Electronics, accessed September 27, 2024, https://www.best-electronics-ca.com/.

12. ^ The question of nostalgia and joysticks is complex. While previous research has highlighted that game controllers have a “potential to serve as stimulants for video game nostalgia,” this potential does not always turn into actuality. Game-controller type does not seem to be related to feelings of nostalgia in a quantitative analysis, and controller type is surpassed by the games’ graphics, sounds, and gameplay in inducing nostalgia. For a more in-depth analysis, see Nicholas David Bowman et al., “That Bygone Feeling: Controller Ergonomics and Nostalgia in Video Game Play,” Psychology of Popular Media 12, no. 2 (2023): 147, https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.1037/ppm0000382.

13. ^ Heritagization is a term used to denote the process by which history becomes heritage, as defined in Olaia Fontal and Carmen Gómez-Redondo, “Heritage Education and Heritagization Processes: SHEO Metodology [sic] for Educational Programs Evaluation,” Interchange 47 (2016): 65–90, https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.1007/s10780-015-9269-z.

14. ^ For a captivating overview of the epistemological importance of everyday objects, see Joe Moran, “History, Memory and the Everyday,” Rethinking History 8, no. 1 (2004): 51–68, https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.1080/13642520410001649723.

15. ^ One of the key sources for identifying controllers has been the Atari Compendium website, which hosts a comprehensive image gallery. “ATARI VCS/2600 Controllers,” Atari Compendium, accessed September 27, 2024, https://www.ataricompendium.com/game_library/controllers/controllers.html.

16. ^ Moran, “History, Memory,” 60.

17. ^ Moran, 62, 66.

18. ^ Ben Levin, “The First Gaming Console,” Computer Museum of America, June 22, 2020, https://www.computermuseumofamerica.org/2020/06/22/the-first-gaming-console/.

19. ^ Tom Zeller, “A Great Idea That’s All in the Wrist,” New York Times, June 5, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/weekinreview/a-great-idea-thats-all-in-the-wrist.html.

20. ^ “Joystick Jury: Readers Rate the Game Controllers,” Electronic Games 1, no. 4 (June 1982): 19–21, https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Games_Volume_01_Number_04_1982-06_Reese_Communications_US/page/n17/mode/2up.

21. ^ Advertisements, Electronic Games 1, no. 4 (June 1982): 20, 32, 65.

22. ^ This joystick is also commonly referred to as the “lawsuit edition joystick.” See, for example, “3 Results for Joystick+lawsuit+edition,” eBay, accessed May 26, 2024, https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p4432023.m570.l1313&_nkw=joystick%2Blawsuit%2Bedition&_sacat=0.

23. ^ “Atari Gains in Patent Case,” New York Times, November 9, 1982, https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/09/business/atari-gains-in-patent-case.html.

24. ^ Tagoo, “月刊ASCII1983年8月号P86,” 月刊ASCII1983年8月号P86 - MSX関連ドキュメント置き場, October 9, 2009, https://w.atwiki.jp/tagoo/pages/13.html.

25. ^ Atari discontinued the Falcon030 in late 1993 to focus on the Jaguar game console. “Atari Falcon,” Atarimuseum.NL, accessed September 27, 2024, https://atarimuseum.nl/atari-falcon/. Escom AG, the final company manufacturing Amiga 1200 computers, declared bankruptcy in 1996. Gareth Knight, “Escom,” Amiga History Guide, accessed September 27, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20200219190642/http:/www.amigahistory.plus.com/escomhist.html.

26. ^ See “Sega Genesis Joystick Controller Pins and Signals,” Pinout Guide, last updated June 6, 2022, https://pinoutguide.com/Game/genesiscontroller_pinout.shtml.

27. ^ Gerald R. Aamoth and John K. Hayashi, Joystick controller mechanism operating one or plural switches sequentially or simultaneously, US Patent 4124787A, filed March 11, 1977, and issued November 7, 1978, https://patents.google.com/patent/US4124787A/en.

28. ^ James C. Asher, Joystick control, US Patent 4349708A, filed August 22, 1979, and issued September 14, 1982, https://patents.google.com/patent/US4349708A/en.

29. ^ Bradley Koda, an ex-Atari engineer, has built a CX40 repair/upgrade kit that he also sells. Its description reveals quite a few weak points in the original design. See “Do You Have One of the Classic Atari CX40 Joysticks That Is Not Working Well? We Have the Perfect Solution for You,” Best Electronics, 2002, accessed September 27, 2024, https://www.best-electronics-ca.com/CX40_REBUILD%20KIT.htm.

30. ^ OnCommand had a hotel TV system called SpectraVision, necessitating the name change. See “The History of Spectravideo,” accessed September 27, 2024, https://www.samdal.com/svhistory.htm.

31. ^ Harry Fox and Peter A. L. Law, Video game joystick apparatus, US Patent D271220, filed November 9, 1982, and issued November 1, 1983, https://patents.google.com/patent/USD271220S/en?oq=us+patent+D271220.

32. ^ “Quickshot 1 Joystick,” Centre for Computing History, accessed September 27, 2024, https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/27261/Quickshot-1-Joystick/.

33. ^ QuickShot II Turbo is a direct descendant of the QuickShot 1; its latest mention in Finland appears in a Spring/Summer 1997 Antilla wholesale mail-order catalog (“Edullinen Amiga Quickshot 2 Turbo -peliohjain,” Anttila Postimyyntikuvasto, Spring/Summer 1997, 342).

34. ^ Suncom advertised its “new babies” in the May 1983 issue of Electronic Games, and the TAC-2 is part of this range. See “Our New Babies,” Electronic Games 1, no. 15 (May 1983): 53, https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Games_Volume_01_Number_15_1983-05_Reese_Communications_US/page/n51/mode/2up.

35. ^ A search for “slik stik” in the Atari 2600 Facebook group, with 24,600 members as of May 2024, brings up about twenty posts directly related to the Suncom Slik Stik, while “tac-2” only brings up half a dozen relevant posts.

36. ^ Wico products were available as early as 1982; see, for example, “Games That Talk and a Computer Named Max,” Electronic Fun with Computers and Games 1, no. 1 (November 1982): 10–11, https://archive.org/details/electronic-fun-with-computers-and-games-volume-1-number-1-november-1982/page/n9/mode/2up. See also “Wico Command Control Joystick,” Electronic Games 2, no. 10 (December 1983): 105, https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Games_Volume_02_Number_10_1983-12_Reese_Communications_US.

37. ^ A pair of Atari CX40 controllers could be bought for eighteen dollars: “Computer Mail Order,” Electronic Games 1, no. 15 (May 1983): 108, https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Games_Volume_01_Number_15_1983-05_Reese_Communications_US/page/n107/mode/2up. An “Atari Joystick” was advertised as low as $6.20; however, it is unclear whether this was genuine: Tele Soft, Inc. advertisement, Compute!, January 1983, 224, https://archive.org/details/1983-01-compute-magazine/page/224/mode/2up.

38. ^ Ken Uston, “Joystick City,” Electronic Fun with Computers and Games 2, no. 1 (November 1983): 26–31, https://archive.org/details/electronic-fun-with-computers-and-games-volume-2-number-1-november-1983/page/n29/mode/2up.

39. ^ News & Products, Compute!, June 1983, 279–94, https://archive.org/details/1983-06-compute-magazine/page/n279/mode/2up.

40. ^ For example, see the Lemon 64 forum: stu232, “Best Joystick? - Page 5,” Lemon64, October 9, 2012, https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44521&start=60; and the comments on a posting concerning the Commodore 1311: bohus, “Worst Retro Joystick Ever?,” Retro Thing (blog), December 28, 2011, https://www.retrothing.com/2011/12/worst-retro-joystick-ever.html.

41. ^ “World’s Largest Selection of Commercial and Home Video Games and Accessories,” Electronic Games 1, no. 15 (May 1983): 44, https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Games_Volume_01_Number_15_1983-05_Reese_Communications_US/page/n43/mode/2up.

42. ^ Andrew Reinhard, “The Video Game Graveyard,” Archaeology Magazine, August 15, 2024, https://www.archaeology.org/issues/139-1407/trenches/2189-new-mexico-atari-dump-site-excavation. An image appears in Uston, “Joystick City.” The ProStick II joystick included in the exhibition came with an instruction sheet from Ramcharged Computers, and its box had the contact information for Newport Controls replaced by that of Ramcharged Computers.

43. ^ “Our Story,” GrooveWasher, accessed September 27, 2024, https://www.groovewasher.com/pages/story. See also “Survival of the Fittest: The Vulcan Death Grip,” Electronic Fun with Computers and Games 1, no. 8 (June 1983): 8, https://archive.org/details/electronic-fun-with-computers-and-games-volume-1-number-8-june-1983/page/n7/mode/2up.

44. ^ For an advertisement, see “Constant Fire: Adapter for Your Joystick,” Electronic Games 1, no. 15 (May 1983): 44, https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Games_Volume_01_Number_15_1983-05_Reese_Communications_US/page/n93/mode/2up.

45. ^ “Extend Your Survival Against Alien Invaders,” Electronic Fun with Computers and Games 2, no. 1 (November 1983): 61, https://archive.org/details/electronic-fun-with-computers-and-games-volume-2-number-1-november-1983/page/n61/mode/2up.

46. ^ As of May 23, 2024, there were fifty-nine PointMaster joysticks available on eBay, with prices starting around ten dollars. In contrast, there were only three ProStick IIs, all of which were priced above thirty dollars.

47. ^ See, for example, “The Pro’s Choice,” Zzap! 64, January 1989, 92, https://archive.org/details/zzap64-magazine-045/page/n91/mode/2up. Dynamics Marketing and Coin Controls operated at the same address, suggesting a close link between these companies. For further discussion on Sega Retro, see “Competition Pro,” Sega Retro, October 2, 2022, https://segaretro.org/Competition_Pro.

48. ^ Philip Kenneth Mcgall, Snap switch, US Patent 1960020A, filed March 29, 1933, and issued May 22, 1934, https://patents.google.com/patent/US1960020A/en. “Another One to Check Out, Brains!,” Computer and Video Games, no. 76 (February 1988): 62–64, https://archive.org/details/ComputerAndVideoGamesIssue076Feb88/page/n61/mode/2up.

49. ^ “Another One to Check Out, Brains!,” Computer and Video Games, no. 76 (February 1988): 62–64, https://archive.org/details/ComputerAndVideoGamesIssue076Feb88/page/n61/mode/2up.

50. ^ Janne Sirén, “Commodoren peliohjaimet,” Skrolli, March 2022, 96–103, https://skrolli.fi/2022.3.yksinolla.pdf.

51. ^ “Joysticks,” ZX Computing Monthly, November 1986, 20–22, https://archive.org/details/zxcomputing-magazine-1986-11/page/n19/mode/2up.

52. ^ Object research has been perceived as the way that the study of museum objects can provide knowledge; see Minna Sarantola-Weiss, “Collection Policy: Experiences and Challenges,” in Museum Studies: Bridging Theory and Practice, ed. Nina Robbins, Suzie Thomas, Minna Tuominen, and Anna Wessman (Jyväskylä, Finland: ICOFOM and University of Jyväskylä Open Science Centre, 2021), 201.