{"id":12797,"date":"2016-03-24T21:31:22","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T01:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/?p=12797"},"modified":"2017-06-05T10:22:36","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T14:22:36","slug":"building-the-stick-of-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/24\/building-the-stick-of-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Building the Stick of Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Update, 2017-06<\/strong>: I&#8217;ve updated the plans so you shouldn&#8217;t need to spend\u00c2\u00a0 time sanding things to fit.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/20\/not-even-remotely-over-engineered-retrogaming-joystick\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-12789\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-12789\" src=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/1458494249-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Not-even-remotely over-engineered retrogaming joystick\" width=\"474\" height=\"474\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/1458494249-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/1458494249-160x160.jpg 160w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/1458494249-320x320.jpg 320w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/1458494249-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/1458494249.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a>Tracking down old Atari-style <a href=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/08\/only-the-finest-twitch-gaming-joystick-ever-made-the-konix-navigator\/\">joysticks<\/a> for retrogaming can expensive, and it&#8217;s hard to tell if you&#8217;ll get something reliable. So I made one for less than the cost of a used stick on eBay.<\/p>\n<p>To build this, you will need:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/elmwoodelectronics.ca\/products\/small-arcade-joystick\">8-way joystick <\/a>, or any stick compatible with the industry standard Sanwa JLF-P1 mounting plate. This has M4 holes at 84 \u00c3\u2014 40 mm.<\/li>\n<li>Two <a href=\"https:\/\/elmwoodelectronics.ca\/products\/arcade-button-30mm-translucent-red\">concave momentary arcade push button<\/a>s. In my built, I used an older design that&#8217;s much taller. You could make the joystick box shorter if you used these snap-in buttons.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/elmwoodelectronics.ca\/products\/de-9-db-9-female-socket-connector-to-terminal-block-breakout\">DE-9 (DB-9) Female Socket Connector<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Terminal block, with at least seven connectors. You&#8217;ll likely want more, so this <a href=\"https:\/\/elmwoodelectronics.ca\/products\/13062\">12 position screw terminal block<\/a> should work.<\/li>\n<li>4\u00c3\u2014 M4 countersunk (oval head) machine screws with nuts and lots of washers. You&#8217;ll need washers to act as spacers between the box and the joystick mounting plate. This allows the joystick&#8217;s dust washer to move freely.<\/li>\n<li>a couple of metres of 8-core stranded signal cable<\/li>\n<li>hookup wire and spade connectors for building the button harness.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The case is made from 6.4 mm high quality plywood, using a <a href=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/box-20170602_082421_263862.pdf\">template<\/a> generated by <a href=\"http:\/\/boxmaker.connectionlab.org\/\">BoxMaker<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 The external dimensions of the box are 163 mm x 143 mm x 83 mm. I haven&#8217;t included any kerf width in the design, so the edges should fit together easily for gluing.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-12798\" src=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/joystick-box-201706.svg\" alt=\"joystick-box\" width=\"480\" \/><br \/>\nJoystick box plan for download: <a href=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/joystick-box-201706.svg\">joystick-box-201706.svg<\/a> (SVG: best in Inkscape); <a href=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/joystick-box-201706.pdf\">joystick-box-201706.pdf<\/a> (PDF).<\/p>\n<p>If you want to make your own design, here&#8217;s the top plate plan: <a href=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/joystick-box-top-201706.svg\">joystick-box-top-201706.svg<\/a> (SVG); <a href=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/joystick-box-top-201706.pdf\">joystick-box-top-201706.pdf<\/a> (PDF).<\/p>\n<p>The basic DE-9 pin wiring for Atari-style joysticks goes like this:<\/p>\n<p>1 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Up<br \/>\n2 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Down<br \/>\n3 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Left<br \/>\n4 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Right<br \/>\n6 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Button<br \/>\n8 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Ground<\/p>\n<p>There are many variants that add features to this scheme, however. If you&#8217;re building for a specific computer, Tomi Engdahl&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epanorama.net\/documents\/joystick\/ataristick.html\">Joystick information<\/a> page has the details.<\/p>\n<p>Many thanks to Andrew Horsburgh for the use of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.protolabto.com\/\">Protolab<\/a>&#8216;s laser cutter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Update, 2017-06: I&#8217;ve updated the plans so you shouldn&#8217;t need to spend\u00c2\u00a0 time sanding things to fit. Tracking down old Atari-style joysticks for retrogaming can expensive, and it&#8217;s hard to tell if you&#8217;ll get something reliable. So I made one for less than the cost of a used stick on eBay. To build this, you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[2745,2079,2967,2556],"class_list":["post-12797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers-suck","tag-atari","tag-commodore","tag-joystick","tag-retrocomputing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQNZZ-3kp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12797"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14034,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12797\/revisions\/14034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}