Real arcade action in your living room

[Nianticcardplayer]

2600 first video game in the house for us space invaders first game hours upon hours spent playing that......

[Chris Goodwin]

RE: Stick Station.....

Don't laugh, but my very first "arcade" control panel was a box with an angled, hinged top, with shelves inside for the console, and a big multi-colored atari logo on the front (masked and spray painted).  The Atari 2600 joysticks, were disassembled so that the upper part could be screwed to the underside of the panel, and the fire button wired out to an external button.  The directionals were also brought out to an Asteroids button layout.  Pretty cutting edge at the time 

There was an article in Creative Computing magazine in 1982 (PDF archived here) that showed you how to build an Asteroids layout button controller for your 2600.  I so wanted to build one of those; I called up an arcade game supplier and asked if they had joysticks.  "Not the kind you're looking for, kid" was the response, right before he hung up on me.   

Edit:  Page 202 in the magazine.  Also talks about modding an Atari joystick for left handed use (change the wiring around, turn it 90 degrees, and viola), which would work better for the stand (most games having a right-hand fire button and all). 

[RandyT]

There was an article in Creative Computing magazine in 1982 (PDF archived here) that showed you how to build an Asteroids layout button controller for your 2600.

Not bad...only took them 4 years after I did mine

I especially like how they got the layout completely wrong....

I so wanted to build one of those; I called up an arcade game supplier and asked if they had joysticks.  "Not the kind you're looking for, kid" was the response, right before he hung up on me.   

Fortunately, the local amusement company owner was someone my dad had done some sign work for previously, and their businesses shared the same building at one point, so they knew each other.  I spent a fair amount of time as a young kid wandering their warehouse and occasionally playing with their old pinball machines and parts (unbeknownst to them ).  When I finally decided to try the real articles, we just drove over and took a walk through their shop.  I walked out with a new WICO leaf stick and two Wico Leaf buttons for $10.00 (no room for an Asteroids layout on that panel, but I needed the extra button for the ColecoVision).  I remember them actually being quite intrigued that such a thing was even possible, so they got a chuckle out of the idea and were quite helpful.