Xenophobe joy with Tron

[telengard]

I finally got my Xenophobe joystick hooked up hoping I could play Tron and be able to play the light cycle stage without zig-zagging.  It still does.    
My Happs trigger w/ the leaf hacks zig-zagged worse, but any is bad during that stage.

I did a little searching and it seems that Tron had a diamond shaped restrictor.  Am I going to have to buy a Tron joystick just to play this game or has some ingenious BYOAC'er come up with a way around this?

The new search engine is pretty nice BTW...

[NoOne=NBA=]

Sorry for taking so long to reply to this, but I needed to get another stick to do a comparison for you.

Assuming my newly arrived DOT stick is the same as your Xenophobe (I can't be SURE until my Xenophobe base gets here next week sometime) there are two pieces that differ from a true Tron stick.

The first is a clearish rubber travel stop near the top of the base.
On the DOT stick it is set square to allow 8-way, and on the Tron stick it's set at 45 degrees to force a 4-way.
As best I can tell (since I forgot to bring calipers home from work, the opening in the rubber piece inside is the same size for both sticks.
That should mean that with some careful cutting, reorienting and screwing, you should be able to rotate the one you have to work properly.
This will involve hacking the corners off to make it fit though, so I'm not sure if it's something you really want to get into.

The other piece that is different is the restrictor plate at the bottom of the stick.
These are red plastic on both my sticks, but I'm not sure of the color on a Xenophobe stick.
That plate is set square for the DOT stick and 45 degrees for the Tron stick as well.
The opening on the one on the Tron stick is slightly smaller than the one on the DOT stick.
I don't think you'd get away with just rotating that unless you really backed off the leaf-switches and made the stick sloppier.
You could probably replace that piece with a piece of Lexan cut to the right size though.
The metal stick rides against it, so swapping to Lexan shouldn't wear anything out I would think.

If this is something you'd like to give a shot at, PM me and I'll bring calipers home to get better measurements for you.

[NoOne=NBA=]

I found a partial fix for this.
It looks to me like you can use the diamond shaped bottom restrictor off a Pac stick.

I just bought one, and it looks like the bottom restrictor will fit the Xenophobe stick.
This would give you 8-way at the top, but should force the actuator to go 4-way, and allow you to play Tron without zigzagging.
I haven't actually put the parts together to test it, but I'm guessing it will work.

The only difference I can see between the Tron bottom plate, and the Xenophobe one is that the Tron plate actually has a diamond shaped HOLE for the diamond shaped restrictor in it, whereas the Xenophobe has a circular one.
The diamond shaped restrictor should drop into that round hole OK though.

I don't know what the long term wear effects will be if you do this; but, even if the diamond shaped restrictor does wear out, you still have the original square one to put back in.

I'll post an update here at such time as I actually try this.
It will need to work its way up my work in progress list though, so it'll be awhile.

[telengard]

I found a partial fix for this.
It looks to me like you can use the diamond shaped bottom restrictor off a Pac stick.

I just bought one, and it looks like the bottom restrictor will fit the Xenophobe stick.
This would give you 8-way at the top, but should force the actuator to go 4-way, and allow you to play Tron without zigzagging.
I haven't actually put the parts together to test it, but I'm guessing it will work.

The only difference I can see between the Tron bottom plate, and the Xenophobe one is that the Tron plate actually has a diamond shaped HOLE for the diamond shaped restrictor in it, whereas the Xenophobe has a circular one.
The diamond shaped restrictor should drop into that round hole OK though.

I don't know what the long term wear effects will be if you do this; but, even if the diamond shaped restrictor does wear out, you still have the original square one to put back in.

I'll post an update here at such time as I actually try this.
It will need to work its way up my work in progress list though, so it'll be awhile.

Wow, very cool news.  I actually just got an original Pac-Man joystick but I'd hate to sacrifice that for the  Tron joystick.  I wonder if these can be purchased separately.

Hehe, I understand the whole priority list all too well.  I've been working on this cab for like 3 years and it never will be completely finished.

[NoOne=NBA=]

I'd give it a shot with yours, just to see if it works.
Tron is REALLY bad with the zigzags.

If it does, there's a guy on ebay selling Pac sticks fairly regularly.
I'm not sure where he's getting them, but he's cleaning them up, shooting a coat of paint on them, and selling them for Buy it Now prices pretty cheap.
I picked mine up for $14.95 + $8.95 shipping.

[telengard]

I'd give it a shot with yours, just to see if it works.
Tron is REALLY bad with the zigzags.

If it does, there's a guy on ebay selling Pac sticks fairly regularly.
I'm not sure where he's getting them, but he's cleaning them up, shooting a coat of paint on them, and selling them for Buy it Now prices pretty cheap.
I picked mine up for $14.95 + $8.95 shipping.

Hmm, maybe I'll do that.  It's definitely cheaper than buying a Tron stick.  Yeah, the light cycles always zig zag for me which is very frustrating.  The rest of the stages are fine though.

[Tiger-Heli]

You guys are re-inventing the wheel - see

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=44;start=msg283#msg283

[NoOne=NBA=]

I didn't see any solutions in that thread.
Which post were you talking about specifically?

[bdsjake]

I can't remember, but how well can you hit the diagonals with a true Tron stick?  

maybe solution is to use a dedicated 4 way stick next to 8way tron type of trigger stick?

[telengard]

I didn't see any solutions in that thread.
Which post were you talking about specifically?

I didn't see anything either.  I think we both participated in the thread too.  

Tiger-Heli, which particular solution mentioned are you speaking of?  I had restrictor plates and didn't like them so I sold them.  

[NoOne=NBA=]

The Tron sticks hit the diagonals fine when you want them to.
The restrictors on them are just big enough to give you a small window on the diagonals, where the stick will function.

The trick for the light cycle stage is to make sure you get to the true directions quickly, and accurately, which is where the 4-way restrictors come in.
With the 4-way Tron stick, you can push the stick quickly from Left to Up, and it HOLDS the stick there.
With the 8-way sticks, the problem is KEEPING them on the true directions without slipping toward a corner.
If you move the Tron stick too slowly during the lightcycle stage it WILL still zigzag.

[telengard]

The Tron sticks hit the diagonals fine when you want them to.
The restrictors on them are just big enough to give you a small window on the diagonals, where the stick will function.

The trick for the light cycle stage is to make sure you get to the true directions quickly, and accurately, which is where the 4-way restrictors come in.
With the 4-way Tron stick, you can push the stick quickly from Left to Up, and it HOLDS the stick there.
With the 8-way sticks, the problem is KEEPING them on the true directions without slipping toward a corner.
If you move the Tron stick too slowly during the lightcycle stage it WILL still zigzag.

That's weird.  I have never seen the zig-zagging in the arcade.  Then again I am really rough on the joystick during that stage.    

[NoOne=NBA=]

That was exactly my point.
If you crank the joystick quickly from one direction to the other, you WON'T see the zigzags.
If you are lazy about it, and hang around the diagonal area as you pass through it, you will get zigzags.

In my book, that joystick is the second most amazing piece of arcade hardware design I've seen.
It is basically a switch-on-the-fly 4/8-way joystick.
You don't notice that it's NOT a true 4-way on the lightcycles; and you don't notice that it's not a TRUE 8-way on the other stages.

The only piece of hardware that I think had a more amazing design is the 720 sticks.
Those were absolutely INCREDIBLE in their intricacy and function.

[telengard]

That was exactly my point.
If you crank the joystick quickly from one direction to the other, you WON'T see the zigzags.
If you are lazy about it, and hang around the diagonal area as you pass through it, you will get zigzags.

In my book, that joystick is the second most amazing piece of arcade hardware design I've seen.
It is basically a switch-on-the-fly 4/8-way joystick.
You don't notice that it's NOT a true 4-way on the lightcycles; and you don't notice that it's not a TRUE 8-way on the other stages.

The only piece of hardware that I think had a more amazing design is the 720 sticks.
Those were absolutely INCREDIBLE in their intricacy and function.

hehe, I understood your point and totally believe you, I was just surprised that I never saw it in the arcades, ever.  I think I'm just in general surprised at how rough I am with video games.  I usually have to adjust the leafs on my 8 ways after a night of playing Robotron.  

I agree it is amazing in it's function, and also in how it looks.  The whole game from top to bottom is a masterpeice IMO.  Env Discs of Tron ranks up there too!    

I'm still hoping I can find just an actuator rather than buying the a 2nd pac-man joy.  $$ is tight.    
Also I imagine that using the actuator will effect other games I use that trigger joy for eh?

[NoOne=NBA=]

If it works like I'm hoping, you should end up with a 4-way that CAN hit the diagonals, which should mean you can play whatever you want with it.

My only question at this point is how big a role that clear rubber restrictor at the top plays in guiding the stick.

[Tiger-Heli]

I didn't see any solutions in that thread.
Which post were you talking about specifically?

I didn't see anything either.  I think we both participated in the thread too.  

Tiger-Heli, which particular solution mentioned are you speaking of?  I had restrictor plates and didn't like them so I sold them.  

Reply #3, OSCAR has links to pics showing dimension of the TRON restrictor, and in Reply #29, I thought NoOne=NBA= had it fixed, but I guess not . . .

That wasn't the main thread, I was thinking more of Spidermonkey's comments in this one -
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=4445;start=msg28373#msg28373

But since both of you were in it as well, I'm not sure I'm helping much.

[NoOne=NBA=]

After reading that thread, I broke down and threw the 4-way Pac restrictor onto my Discs of Tron stick.

That makes the stick feel "almost" like a Tron stick.
The upper restrictor does play a large part in the overall feel of the stick, but just changing out the bottom restrictor will work.

I don't have my DOT stick mounted yet, but you can definitely feel the bottom restrictor holding it to 4-way mode.
The one caution I would give about this is that you probably need to make double-sure that it has the red shaft cover that rides around in the lower restrictor on it.
I don't think it will guide that well without that piece.