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Comment by dangle1 | Hacker News Reader

"The system comes with a CX40+ Joystick which has been lovingly recreated to the same specifications as the original"

I don't think the person that wrote this ad copy was alive when the original, fragile-as-glass 2600 joysticks were in circulation, or maybe they were and were able to slip this joke into the product description unnoticed.

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Fragile’s not really the right word. They often were flaky about reporting input, but were quite hardy when the player responded by smacking them against the floor in an effort to revive them.

Maybe they fixed it in later versions, but the controllers had plastic “fingers” inside that would press down on the metal dome button, and it was pretty easy to push the stick too hard where it would snap the plastic finger. I think that’s what most people remember about their fragility.

I could also see that the electrical signal from the metal dome button probably wasn’t very clean/reliable, however I don’t think most people noticed that in the same way they would today.

I remember sometimes, the rubber cover of the stick would slide off the stick, and then you had a wonderful suction cup that you could stick on your brother's forehead. Then you could call him a unicorn.

It came off on a couple of my joysticks, and I found that just using the white plastic underneath felt more precise.

I would describe them as blister-inducing and creaky. But relatively dependable (to a point).

"Simmons Fracture": https://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n1/repairjoystick.html

Yeah, and at the time this weakness was in a way a learning opportunity that may have been more valuable than the formal play the console offered.

It provided a safe way to learn about design and manufacturing techniques during disassembly and hypothesis testing re: how does it work?

It provided lessons in materials science and chemistry: "On TV, the Superglue held that construction guy in midair attached only by a small dot of glue between his hardhat and the steel girder above him. Why won't it hold the plastic ring together? Why is duct tape somewhat better if you don't mind frequent reapplication?"

Engineering: "The joystick-ring-switch mechanism is something like the levers we have to calculate mechanical advantage on at school. If so, there is a comparatively huge moment on the tip of the joystick compared to the plastic ring."

There were also some global macroeconomic principles in there that we were too naive to appreciate, but in our defense, most of our parents didn't appreciate the change that was coming either.

It looks like they sell paddles too. I'd pay for those, especially if there was a USB adaptor, so I could just run the games on a PC or raspberry pi.

They weren't that fragile, but did tend to wear out after maybe a couple of months of heavy use.

> to wear out after maybe a couple of months

That is my definition of fragile.

When they say "lovingly recreated", the "love" is for money, not hardware.

As kids, I remember one time we got really desperate and disassembled a broken joystick to see if we could still play by pressing the internal 'buttons' directly. Although it technically worked, the experience was poor, to say the least.

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