This has to be fake because the joystick hasnt broken off yet.
Pretty neat, huh? I rarely use the joystick. It’s so useless!
What I never really figured out was who in their right mind would flip the switch and use it upside down. Lol the early days of game pads was really the wild west. This bad boy was a pioneer.
Not you because there is 0 hand cheese on that controller you sweatless freak of nature.
Hand cheese? No way! If my controllers start to get any build-up, they get disassembled and receive some soft bristled toothbrush love.
It’s okay, I’m just fiercely jealous cause I miss my Gravis Gamepad. I’d put that think in a light box or something for display, it was excellent.
They’re pretty cheap, that would make an awesome display piece!
I might look into this. I never considered if it was affordable
I actually never had one even though everyone else I knew did. My house was a mix of Microsoft and Thrustmaster peripherals.
Looking back, Thrustmaster doesn’t sound that wholesome.
We had mostly all Gravis stuff. Except for this weird Nintendo branded joystick we had for a while. I always liked the look of the Microsoft stuff, but it was always too expensive.
Haven’t seen mine in… decades but it’s probably in my parents’ basement somewhere. I do know that this awkward looking device is in my own basement though:
And it’s sitting next to this more conservative looking rig:
The SideWinder! I still have mine but it has a broken connection somewhere. I need to find it and see if I can get it working again.
That’s so cool! What the heck do you even do with that ball thing? My more contemporary controller is a Gravis Eliminator Aftershock. The D-pad kinda sucks, but the analog sticks have a precision setting that works nicely for casual flying games and sniping in FPS games.
A man of culture I see. This was my first controller, complete with years of grime. I think I had an old Logitech DualShock clone next.
Nice!! That’s got some miles on it, for sure. I didn’t get mine until a couple years ago, I like it a lot.
My first controller was the Gravis in my post pic, but not that one. Lost that one so many years ago. My second one sucked, it was a PC Propad by Performance. But my third one, that was awesome. It was a Gravis Stinger, it was serial for use with laptops, and you could also use it as a mouse. The joystick was hall effect, so it never wore out. Man, I used that from my first Compaq LTE-5300, until laptops didn’t have serial ports standard anymore. Gravis made the best stuff back in the day.
Whoa. I haven’t seen or thought about that game in 20+ years and instantly recognized it. That was weird. I might have to dig that out.
edit: I played it on a microsoft sidewinder 3d pro
Great game. And E.V.E., the ship’s computer, is voiced by the lovely Gillian Anderson.
The ball thing was basically on a set of hinges and could move on all three axises and could be used in place of a mouse in a traditional mouse and keyboard setup. There are plenty of videos to watch it in motion, just search for Sidewinder Dual Strike. The controller itself was… just okay. It was an interesting idea but it was not a substitute for m&k. Maybe I’ll dig mine out and give it a try, as it hasn’t been used in 20 years now. It would be interesting to see how it feels in a post-dual stick world.
Both of these controllers were under the “Sidewinder” branding. There was another model called the Sidewinder Freestyle that contained some early motion detection too I don’t think I had one of those, but I do recall having one of these:
Hey I played Power Pete with one of those!
damn this is extremely nostalgic. i used this to play so many hours of Captain something i forgot.
Commander Keen probably.
He did not like to be called Captain at all
yesss! omg
For me, it was Jazz Jackrabbit. Well, at least the shareware version.
The Adventures of Captain Comic?
I have one of these on a shelf in my office.
That’s wild! Do you use it often?
Nope. I used it for a day or so, then put it on the shelf where it resides to this day. It was a nifty gimmick, but not much more than that.
I used to use the ADB version of this on my Mac back in the day.
Oh, yeah? Nice! I didn’t know they made a non-game port version.
I did have one of those, but it quickly gave way to the original CH Products Flightstick. Fond memories of Comanche: Maximum Overkill with the Flightstick’s throttle. Worked great for Earthsiege and Strike Force Centauri as well.
Oh man, I absolutely loved that thing back in the day! Including the screw-on “stick”!
Holy fuck, I had this MF way back in the day on my OG Packard bell.
Does your machine still have a midi port or are you using an adapter?
I’m using an adapter. I am thinking about getting a card with a port for my XP rig, because I also have a Sidewinder Force Feedback I haven’t gotten to work with the adapter yet.
That’s fully embracing the retro, props
Ahhh. I loved the GamePad. Never used the screw in joystick though. Trivia: the little plastic joysticks were designed to break under pressure to save the GamePad itself from damage.
Until Gravis moved their production of joysticks overseas, quality control was excellent and the products were completely overbuilt. The products that came out of China weren’t as good.
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