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720 controls design - wouldn't this be better??

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Xiaou2:

 Race?!  What are you talking about?!

 The only think I can Think of, is that you are thinking about moving the bottom mounted
Pivot Holder Arm to the top.   However, the shaft sits at an angle.. and the upper part of the
shaft moves at a greater diameter than the holder does.  If this were reversed, the pivot
ball would wear more on more sides.  It might also have to be much larger to accommodate the
additional angular needs of the larger diameter.

 Also, because the smaller diameter on the bottom, and larger up top... there is more
leverage - thus less friction experienced by the player.  The main center pivot
ball takes most of the abuse, leaving the bottom in decent shape, and less friction
and wear to deal with.

 
 The Chain drive is an Excellent idea.  Not made from Boredom, as the unwitting suggest.
The gears and chains create just the right amount of friction to keep the controls tight.
If you removed the chain... the control would be too loose and sloppy.. and hard to maintain
correct angles... as well as being able to better time the spins.

 If this used something other than a chain.. such as a resistive pad or spring system...
the spring would eventually lose its push.. and the pad/brake would eventually wear out...
all the while spreading debris all over the system, and clogging up & destroying other
parts in the process.

 
 Im not a huge fan of the controller... and yet, I cant see any other way it should or
could work and be better than this.

 Remember... that Atari's designers had to make controls that could take major abuses...
and still keep on working.   They were field tested in busy locations and hammered on by
punk teens, drunks, and children.  Many controllers had to be revisioned several times due
to test-site failures. (or redesigned for better feel/control)

 My favorite control set of theirs being  "Hard Driven" Sit-down.  Nobody has made a better
controller setup... in feel, realism, control, and long lasting lifespan.

 Least fav was Road Riot.. whos steering wheels springs kept eating the assembly up, 
as well as the thin wires kept breaking inside the steering wheel.


 Id love to see you attempt to make a working 720 stick thats superior to the original.

Beretta:
wow that thing looks complex, i bet this was the only game that ever used it.. right?

i agree about the hard drivin cockpits my favorite arcade driving game, use to always play that when went to the arcade before i had my license and realized driving is'nt exactly "fun"

if i ever get a chanced to do a cockpit thats exactly the kinda controls setup i'd try to recreate.

u_rebelscum:

--- Quote from: Beretta on October 09, 2009, 12:32:07 am ---wow that thing looks complex, i bet this was the only game that ever used it.. right?

--- End quote ---

Right.  However many of the parts are shared with other Atari sticks.  You can see a lot of the sharing at Ram Controls site.  So it's not as unique as all that.  Still, some parts are only for this one controller (at least AFA arcade controllers go: the chain is a common non-arcade part for example).



--- Quote from: Xiaou2 on October 08, 2009, 10:36:21 pm ---... the pivot ball would wear more on more sides....

--- End quote ---

I picture the pivot ball more worn all on one side (top half?), vs the fairly even wear of the original forces from both sides design.  But I agree with the more wear part.


More on the "redesign" in general, my biggest question is how could all the stuff moved be anchored securely, so it moves smoothly, and as cheaply.  With the sweaping joystick shaft, there is a cone inside the sweep above the pivot ball than you cannot fix anything; they must be anchored out side the cone. 

The "easiest" way I can see is with another disk sort of like the dust cover disk with the off centered hole.  It would need to be thicker, made of metal, with an angled hole.  The encoder wheels and resistance  stuff would need to be attached outside the radius of the joystick shaft.  The disk would need to be in a strong track of some sort.  With the encoder wheels requirements, that mean either the top half of the holder track would need to be separate from the bottom, or the encoder wheels inside the tracks and read through a gap in the tracks.  And I can easily see the above setup catching too often unless the hole the shaft went though was pivoted also.

The alternate is forget the shaft, and make it an upside dow cone with a "shaft" coming out at an angle near the edge of the cone.  It would need to be held done while able to spin, and the encoder wheels etc attached some how.  Totally unique piece, very fault intolerant, very hard to repair, very expensive to make.  (A shaft out of disk would have many of the same problems, except maybe being cheaper, but have more of the leverage problem Xiaou2 mentioned.


As said, the 720 controller isn't perfect.  But it's pretty well designed (although it did need the one minor revision mentioned at the 720 page I linked above).

DashRendar:
Wow, it's odd to see something so mechanical in this electronic age!

Reminds me of Steampunk.

RandyT:

I've never had the opportunity to play with one of these outside of a cabinet, and my last interaction with them was about 20 years ago.  So could someone please tell me if this control is anything more than a spinner with an angled joystick as the "knob"?

I see that the design offers absolute positioning, but that looks about to be all.  Also, about how many rotations can one get out of these things when spun?

BTW, to echo what has already been said, the chain is a very clever idea.  It simply uses the natural energy loss (basically friction) of the chain mechanism to slow and stop the spin, without putting a great deal of resistance into the control.  I'm not sure how that exact effect could be duplicated without doing something similar.

That being said, I think a new control can be made to approximate the action of this one, with a smaller footprint and maybe a lower cost (don't know what the originals went / go for.)  But the feel would only be approximate, as there is no way I would consider using a chain to dampen the motion.

RandyT

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