A curious joystick

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Today I read this on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/mwichary/status/119 ... 44064?s=19

Designed by Grant Designs, Ltd, it appeared in a SU article (Feb'84):

https://www.sinclairuser.com/023/hardwre.htm

For only £9,95 you could own a true 'cursor' joystick...

https://twitter.com/mwichary/status/119 ... 57665?s=19

I remember having a similar gadget, but for the PC keyboard, using the cursor keys.

Did anyone have any?

[1024MAK]

After reading a review of this, I stayed well clear of it...

I got a Sinclair Interface 2 and a separate joystick (can’t remember the exact name, but I think it was a Cheetah marketing version).

Mark

[5MinuteRetro]

For no particular reason I often find myself taking the postcodes from old adverts and tapping them into Google Maps to call up a Street View. Nothing particularly interesting about this one but I've already done the above, so I thought I'd share. Looks like this joystick was likely hand-made by some old bloke in his shed/garage workshop. I wonder how many he sold?

[5MinuteRetro]

Another advert for this stick, from the April/May 1984 issue of ZX Computing: http://www.retro8bitcomputers.co.uk/Con ... y_1984.pdf



And a different address/distributor on this one, so perhaps an early example of a Far East import being hawked by various UK-based chancers? Here's the Street View (yes, yes, my minor obsession, but why not share?):

[Joefish]

It was enough to make Amstrad users jealous...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKXU6FOW9t0

[R-Tape]

Waiting for the kickstarter...

[DouglasReynholm]

It was enough to make Amstrad users jealous...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKXU6FOW9t0

I have an almost empty Tipp-Ex bottle and some Blu tac right here!

In other news, the joystick in OP looks only slightly less flimsy than the 'Sinclair' (Amstrad really) SJS1