wico microswitch joystick question

[IreM72]

Hi,

I'm coming back to this great hobby after a long while. I want to build a simple 1 player 8 way control panel with the only two 8 way joysticks I have ( these days I just don't have any  money to spend on more joys unfortunately  ), both are wico's which I bought ages ago. A leaf and a microswitch (grommet one)

The leaf one will be for the older classics and microswitch one for fighters (like streetfighter) and newer games, which used microswitch sticks. I might keep searching for one more of a wico leaf to make a robotron/proper 2 player control panel (if I can find them, so difficult to find these days) or even other sticks if I have money and time but at the moment I will just make do with what I have for some hardcore arcade gaming.


There is a lot of information on the wico leaf sticks but not much on the 8 way microswitch variety I want to know:

What arcade games actually used the wico microswitch joystick?
What years were these wico microswitch sticks used?
Were they a popular stick for arcade machines?

Thanks in advance

[Kremmit]

A lot of operators used them as replacements and in conversions, so you'll find them in a lot of old cabs.  Unfortunately, that makes it harder to tell which games originally shipped with them. 

I don't really know just when they were introduced.  I do know that the spring (not grommet) variety were installed on Mercs machines, which KLOV lists as 1990.  I believe the spring variety came after the grommet type, and I know that the leafswitch variety was still dominant in the early part of the 80's, so I guess that puts the grommet-and-microswitch type you've got somewhere in the mid-to-late 80's.  Somebody with a stash of old Wico catalogs could probably pinpoint it better, if there is anybody out there that saved the things.