Our hobby in The New York Times -- sort of

[Jim Brain]

Computer Collector Newsletter wrote:

>Hi everyone,
>
>This is VERY cool: Jeri Ellsworth and her C64 30-in-1 joystick are featured in
>The New York Times.  As I write this email (2:54AM, Monday), it's on the actual
>nytimes.com homepage, with a color photo of her.  The article itself is at
>(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/technology/20joystick.html?8dpc).
>
>There is a product review of the 30-in-1, head-to-head against the new Atari
>Flashback, at my own site (http://news.computercollector.com) -- click the
>'reviews' link.
>
>  
>
I can't remember if someone else remarked this to you on this list, but 
you can hold the fire button down to bypass all the intros.

Concerning the joystick, it appears there are two variants.  Mine, for 
instance, does not suffer from the diagonal issue, but others do.  It 
appears to be related to the little rubber "pads" used to implement the 
joystick directions.  My good unit has softer yellow pads, while the bad 
units appears to all have the same gray pads used on the fire buttons.  
Notwithstanding, I think the C64DTV stick is underwhelming, even on my 
good units.  It can be inferred that Jeri's exceptional core has been 
married to a underengineered package.

Jim



-- 
Jim Brain, Brain Innovations
brain at jbrain.com                                http://www.jbrain.com
Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times!