– Retrodrömmar
In this post we will take a closer look on the inside of a Dreamcast controller. We bought a (dirty) controller on Swedish eBay that we cleaned while taking the pictures below. The Dreamcast controllers received mixed reviews: some love them, others hate them. The controller is constituted by a analog joystick, and a regular digital controller. Four buttons, one start button, and two “triggers”…
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I recently bought a Playstation 2 guitar, model Red Octane PSLGH on Swedish eBay. The seller described that the white “strummer” only works one way: upwards. It make sense since most player press it downwards while playing, so I suspected a simple mechanical issue would be the cause. To scroll menus and song lists, the strummer has to work both ways, and I play by…
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When the Playstation 2 was released by Sony in 2000, it would become the most sold videogame in the world, with 155 million units sold. The console marked a clear shift in the videogame market, when SEGA stopped creating hardware since the Dreamcast could not compete with the PS2. The sequel to the 1994 Playstation had several properties that made it popular, including a DVD-player…
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The Nintendo Gameboy was released in 1989 and became a huge success. The unit can be described as a handheld version of the popular 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), or Famicom (Family Computer). The Gameboy is characterized by using the same type of controls as the NES, powered by four AAA-batteries, a monochrome (greenish) screen, and a simple, but robust design. During the 1990s several…
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Wico Command Control is another classic joystick I have had the honor to work on lately. In prior posts I’ve described repairs of Wico Q Stick and Suncom TAC-2. The Wico Command Controlk was bought together with a couple of other broken joysticks. All three joysticks had their cables cut at the base of the joystick for some reason. Apart from that, the Command Control…
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If Commodore 64 is one of the most classic home computers from the 1980s, then Suncom’s TAC-2 (Totally Accurate Controller MK2) joystick is one of the most classic joysticks of all time, known for its precision and robustness. The TAC-2 is almost indestructible apart from some corrosion issues, and problems with old broken wires, both with can be easily fixed. However, there are a few…
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I recently bought three broken joysticks from Swedish eBay: A Tac-2, a Wico Command Control and a Wico Q Stick. All three joysticks had their cables cut at the base for some reason. In this post I will focus on repairing the Q Stick. The Qstick is a budget joystick created in China for the European market. It reminds about Suncom’s Tac-2 in design (a…
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In this post I will mount a Raspberry pi 3 in a Commodore64c. The purpose is to create an emulator environment for a variety of videogames and computers. When I ran the emulators for Commodore 64 and Amiga, I think the right “feeling” did not kick in due to lack of keyboard and the possibility to use old joysticks. For this build I choose to…
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I recently bought some broken joysticks (Tac-2, Wico Command Control, etc) at Swedish Ebay. Some of them had cut cables for some reason. So, after I’ve fixed them I want to make sure they work properly before I plug them into a real joystick port. A quick way to do this is by construct a joystick tester. The idea is rather simple: You connect the…
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In this post I aim to refurbish a poor Game & Watch Donkey Kong that has been severly mistreated by a former owner. The classic handheld game from Nintendo was bought on Swedish Ebay together with two broken Gameboys, of which one is repaired (we will cover this in a later post). Anyway, the below pictures show the state of Donkey Kong when we recieved…
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