Spring loaded potentiometer -- joystick/mouse hack?

[Justin Z]

I saw a spring-loaded potentiometer on http://www.videoconnect.com/pages/joys.htm -- it's the sort of thing you would use on that old football game "Quarterback" to throw passes/kick the ball.  Any idea how I'd hack that to a mouse/joystick input?  Obviously analog control is necessary since you're dealing with how far back you're pulling the lever, and to what degree left or right you're aiming.  I would think a joystick hack would make more sense because a mouse obviously doesn't have a set 0 point for x/y.

You are dealing with a Llama Newbie to the nth degree, but don't worry, a little technical speak won't lose me.

Thanks all

~Justin

[paigeoliver]

I have two of those.

They are an easy hook up. Just buy a cheapo analog PC joystick and swap over the pots and wiring.

In reality they are almost the EXACT same thing as those mid 80s analog PC joysticks, except for the spring loading.

Also, these require a metal panel, top mounting, or a mounting plate, as the sticks are EXTREMELY short.

[Justin Z]

Paige -

Cool.  I was thinking this would be the way to make some use of the unoccupied game port on the back of my machine.  USB isn't needed for everything I guess! :)

Do you play Quarterback, or some other type of game with your spring-sticks?

~Justin

[paigeoliver]

I haven't actually put them on a control panel or anything yet.

[jerryjanis]

I have two of those controllers from Leland's World Series Baseball.  I wired them up using 1UP's MS Sidewinder Dual Strike hack.  With his hack, I was able to simply take the wires coming out of the spring-loaded joysticks and wire 'em up to the circuit board on the Dual Strike.  I like this method better for a couple of reasons:

1) I get to use the original pots from the arcade controller.  I assume that these are much better quality than anything I'd find in a cheap PC joystick.

2) I don't have to take the arcade controller apart and try to cram pots that might not be the exact same size as the arcade ones into it.

The dual strike hack is a pretty easy one to do.

Here's a link to 1UP's tutorial:

http://www.1uparcade.com/projects-dualstrike.html

I have a few extra Dual Strike joypads if you are in the market (send me a PM).  I bought extras assuming that I would break a few before I got it right, but it turned out to be really easy so I got it right the first time.

[jerryjanis]

Whoa!  I just noticed the price on those!  $25 apiece?!?  I got my a pair of joysticks by accident, actually.  There was an auction for a complete World Series Baseball control panel, so I bid a dollar as sort of a joke.  Nobody else made any bids, so I won it for $0.01!!!  It ended up costing another $12.00 or so for shipping, but just so you know, you might be able to get them a bit cheaper on Ebay.

Here's a picture of my setup:

http://www.jstookey.com/images/leland_joy.jpg

[Justin Z]

Jerry,

Thanks a lot for the advice.  I will definitely take a look at the joystick hack and see what I can do with it.

It is likely to not go directly into my control panel but onto the side, so hopefully I can build a little box for it and attach it that way.  Thank you for posting the picture, that'll help too.

~Justin