analog sticks

[shadowdrak]

What is the favorite analog stick?  Are there any good ones with ball/bat tops? I have to make a gameport plug to make it work with my PC right?

[spidermonkey]

When it comes to true arcade quality bat/balltop analog joysticks the list is rather short since there weren't many games that used an actual bat or balltop analog stick. Most games that had analog sticks used either flight sticks or the little finger sticks found on old sports games by Leland which are pretty much useless for anything other then the games they were intended for. The only game that comes to mind that used an actual balltop analog stick was "Foodfight" by Atari. The problem is most game manufacturers used other types of sticks to achieve analog movement. These types include hall effect joysticks as well as 49-way joysticks. Check out the Happ Controls website for a nice bat handled analog stick part # 50-2876-00. Be prepared to cough up a stack of dead presidents cuz they don't come cheap but they're really the only option unless you're lucky enough to win a furious bidding war on a used Foodfight stick on Ebay. You could hack a balltop shaft onto a cheapo pc flight stick but take it from experience as they usually have a very long throw causing a very un-original and crappy feel. I ended up getting the Happ stick as I grew tired of waiting for one to pop up on Ebay which is pretty rare I might add. As far as interfacing it you could wire it to the serial port like you described. You could also use 1-UP'S Sidewinder Dual Strike hack or you could get an AKI interface from "Daves Electronics".. http://dave.bit2000.com/  I recently bought both of his interfaces and they work very nicely.I still don't know why Happ charges so damn much for their analog stick but I can tell you that it is built very well and works great for games like Foodfight,Roadrunner,Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters, I-Robot ect.. Works pretty good for Sinistar too but I recently got a 49-way balltop and Daves "SJC" interface so I'll be using that to play Sinistar instead.
Hope you find the solution you're looking for.

[Apollo]

Just wanted to say kudos to spidermonkey for that reply, thats the kind of thing that made me realise what a great forum this is when I joined.

[Minwah]

The most common arcade analog sticks I have seen available (ebay and such) have been flight-stick style ones, which are great for AfterBurner etc., but aren't much good for some of the ball/bat top analog games IMO.

I have basically given up on a real arcade analog stick for the moment, and will be using a 49-way & SJC board too - hopefully it should play the analog stick games reasonably well...

[paigeoliver]

I also use the 49-way and SJC as well.

[Lilwolf]

btw, I have one of sinisters 49 way with Daves board..

Its GREAT... for sinister... but the spider makes me guess about how good it is for some types of games.

I like it for n64 emulation also.  

but true analog arcade joystick with a bat top... Not many out there... I think you would do better to find a flight stick on ebay (some go for 10 bucks + shipping) and hack a bat stick ontop...  Never tried it.... but it should be doable.

[Minwah]

but true analog arcade joystick with a bat top... Not many out there... I think you would do better to find a flight stick on ebay (some go for 10 bucks + shipping) and hack a bat stick ontop...  Never tried it.... but it should be doable.

I did something similar...but with a bat-top handle onto Happ flight stick.  It looked great, but I could never get the centering mech right (it was crap to begin with, Happ have now revised it I believe).  Also, there is a n *awful* lot of throw, due to the now short stick compared with the long flight handle.

I'm sure it might be possible to do well with the right analog stick, but as I say I have now resigned to using a 49-way.

Edit: http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=20409;start=msg164632#msg164632