Arcade style joystick for portable idea

arfink · Post by **arfink** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:51 pm

I have been thinking of making a portable arcade system of some kind for a long time now, but I have always been irritated by the fact that I would have to play arcade games, especially fighter games, without the benefit of a real joystick. So I made up some drawings for a joystick unit which should be thin enough for a laptop setup, and which has a removable handle for then you want to fold the lid shut. I have no idea if the parts I want to use are actually available to me, but I should be able to invent something fairly easily. For the roller bearings I think I might use BB's and some spring steel or something like that. Even better idea: modify one of those screwdrivers with the removable/reversible blade instead of building a complex roller bearing setup. I have not done much materials research yet, so all you get for now is the drawing. Tell me what you think!

link to the drawing:
http://personal.stthomas.edu/arfink/portastik.jpg

Edit: after an exhaustive 5 minute Google search, I have found something which might work good. Ball catches for cabinets could be modded and/or carefully mounted in order to do the job. Now I just need to find some small ones.

arfink · Post by **arfink** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 7:12 pm

OK, here us a pic of something which might do the trick for part of the hardware setup. Now I need to find a local hardware store that carries these.

Edit: that's the ball hinge I am talking about

Post by **Skyone** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 7:25 pm

Er wait, if you'll be holding this portable upright, you must have some big-ass thumbs. Can you draw out what the portable will look like?

dudex77 · Post by **dudex77** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 4:15 am

or you could just get one of those dpads with the little screw in bit in the center for if you want to screw in a joystick

arfink · Post by **arfink** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 12:02 pm

No, no, this is not a hand held. It would be a laptop type device simply because arcade mobos are sometimes as huge as pizza boxes. I have a nice ancient TI laptop case which will do wonderfully after I install my RGB screen and paint it gloss black and get some nice artwork on it. Instead of a keyboard there will be a joystick and arcade buttons. Hence the joystick needs to be removable and BIG. If I wanted a joystick to run with my thumb I would rip one out of a Neo Geo Pocket. (I love that little joystick!)

Edit: it's not a TI, its a Tandy 1110 FD

It looks like this stock (not mine, just the same model though)
http://www.8bit-micro.com/images/tandy1 ... 1100fd.gif[/img]

arfink · Post by **arfink** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 12:10 pm

If you're imagination isn't working quite quick enough today, I can photoshop this picture to look like what I want it to look like, but only if you really can't imagine it. I have not done any design drawings yet, I am just "flying by the seat of my pants" if you will. Yeah, I could have used any retro laptop case, but the Tandy ones are tougher and don't look as cheesy or stupid as some of the other ones. I think mine will pretty amazing in black.

dudex77 · Post by **dudex77** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 1:33 pm

ok cool you know what im talking about. what i mean is that you make your own joystick that just screws in to its place

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 4:00 pm

The joysticks on the Pac-Man type joystick games are actually pretty decent and compact. It wouldn't take too much modding to make the handle removable and reinsertable.

If the games you plan to use 8-way joysticks, avoid the actual Pac-Man models as they have 4-way joysticks(Ms. Pac-Man and other models are 8-way for most that I've seen).

arfink · Post by **arfink** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 10:26 pm

Yeah, this would be 8 way for sure, it's going to run smaller Jamma boards most likely. As for the screw-in joystick: I am avoiding that because I don't know how I would match the threading on such a device. Plus I want to try it for myself.

Looking at actual arcade joysticks was the motivation for the custom design- it's very hard to mod a real arcade stick's handle to be removable and re-insertable.