Return of a legend ? Suzo Competition Pro (USB)

[Level42]

OK friends, I knew this was around already, but today I was at the Media Markt in Cologne (Germany) and picked it up for 15 Euro's:

The SpeedLink Competition Pro USB digital joystick.



(more info www.speed-link.com).

Looks familiar ? Yes, it's a remake of the famous Suzo Competition Pro joystick so many of us used on their Atari systems (or even Commodore, I can now forgive you )

There was a demo model on the shelves and I tried it (unconnected) and I was shocked. I had read some pretty favorable reviews about it, but I can only say: It sucks !

How sad. On the first looks, everything seems ok. Apart from the extra buttons, and the switch for auto-fire there seems to be very little differences. However, I instantly noticed that the fire buttons are tilted when they are in rest position...strange...when I pressed them I figured out why. There are microswitches underneath them. The button's themselves are wrong too. They are too flat compared to the original. The feel of pressing the buttons is close to a BYOAC gamers' nightmare. Too much resistance, sloppy, strange feeling. All in all: wrong.

Sadly, the same low quality microswitches are used for the stick as well. I've never been a fan of microswitch sticks, and I am in the rare and very lucky position to still own one of the very first versions of the Competition Pro's with ALL leafs. I love and treasure it ! Anyway, I already think the original Suzo was noisy, but this new version clearly shows it can be a lot worse. Here too, the resistance is too high, it just feels wrong.

I will make photo's and even video's because you gotta see and hear the difference to believe it all....

So why did I buy it ? Well, I hoped (and was not disappointed) that I could convert a REAL Suzo Competition Pro to a USB version, using the electronics inside the new version. The electronics is a very small PCB that includes the autofire switch. And luckely, all the connections are the same size, so this should be very easy to do. I will only loose the 3rd and 4th button, but I don't see a real use for them anyway (hard to press, and the feel even worse then the regular buttons).

One question: The USB version shows up as an analog game pad. How do I configure this for Mame32 ? I've selected the joystick under Controls, but it won't do anything in the games (it will work in the game selection).

[Vigo]

there is a recent commodore 64 plug and play tv game that was just released that is also based on the same joystick. While the games are fun to play on the tv, the joystick sucks horribly. So your usb joystick isn't the only  recent screw up on a once great joystick.

[Level42]

Hadn't seen that one before. The texture of the handle looks very much the same indeed. Must come from the same Chinese factory !

What a shame that a great idea like this crashes down on bad production quality and parts. If only the microswitches would be proper cherry's....that would already improve it a LOT.

I actualy played it today and well....it does work. But it sure isn't like the real thing. Hope to do my conversion soon.  I was thinking that maybe I can make this switchable between original "Atari" connector and USB....

Now how to configure this thing in Mame32 ??