Confessions of a "Joystick Builder"

If you like that one, here's my other one I created with Sanwa's bat shaped joystick:




Your'e the exact reason I created this thread. When the history of Joysticks is written, I'd like to be put in my proper place, along with this community who helped propogate the popularity of Sanwa and pushing joystick making to another level.

Nobody at the time had good information on how to make the base, where to purchase Sanwa parts, how to wire. I took time to put it out there. Directly or indirectly, maybe there's an influence. The custom sticks back then were just box shaped.

Unfortunately, I just didn't have the time to upkeep the Joystick builder site. AOL shut it's webspace, and I didn't find out till much later. I didn't even know the site was down. This kind of distracted me also... and photography (yeah, I took those shots):




Funny, I remember getting solicited to make these production sticks, and I just couldn't do it.

Here's one message from IMF to make one for Kyasao circa 9/26/03:
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">shinz has had to cancel on us for FSB. if you remember i msg'd you earlier about possibly making a stick for him. well now it seems that kyasao will be coming instead. is there any chance you'll be able to put a stick together as a gift for kyasao in such a short amount of time? FSB is Oct 11th and kyasao plans to come around the 7th. let me know if you have any ideas. thx
</div></div>

Again, I created the Joystick builder circa late 2002/early 2003 to appease all the requests I was getting after I made a stick after showing the first stick I made in the first post of this thread.

Everyone again, was just bitching about the quality of the controls available then, so I thought why not make one out of true Japanese arcade parts.

Here's some posts to prove dates:
http://virtuafighter.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/54058/1

The Start of "The Joystick Builder":
http://virtuafighter.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/57315/1
http://virtuafighter.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/70815/1

Got to look at Brydo's stuff... reminds of these I made for Netrom and Raider below. I love his work, and am glad he is carrying on making sticks. Myself, I don't know why anyone would want to make a custom stick now, since you can easily buy one with all arcade components.




Here's the package I got from Sanwa back in '02. NOBODY WAS SELLING SANWA STUFF ONLINE AT THE TIME, EXCEPT FOR SANWA THEMSELVES. Check out the date: 11/27/02... this was my second shipment from Sanwa.

 

thumbs up seeing this thread Catch!

i remember drooling silently over each and every one of these sticks (&thus remembering all of them looking at the pics)
found a PM where i'm asking about pricing (was in high school then for the modded namco stick vs a homemade one in '03 & then an attempt to place an order in '04... when it was too late...

otherwise (considering my feeble VF skills) and autistic care for things i like, i'd sure load up some near vanilla pics of one of your sticks

but sure is great timing posting this, being away from VF since the VF EVO days & now into looking around for a stick for FS on PS3, i can sure understand your sentiment seeing all these sticks & sanwa parts flying around, (i ordered some in the early 00's at someone at SRK never got any of them)

AH THE GOOD OLD DAYS

 

Believe me, I never forgot about Catch22. Although i wasn't a member on this forum 9-years ago, i certainly did lurk. Matter of fact, the 3rd post I ever made on this forum is in regards to finding your old blueprints, also 3-years ago on SRK, I made a post. Welcome back. Now, about those blueprints...

 

Player1: sorry man for not being able to make you one. I'm are you can find a great stick today... the Hori Rap 3 looks like a great deal on Amazon. Only $125-129. Glad you contributed your memories. Things have certainly changed. It seems the manufacturers are seeing a demand for higher quality sticks, and they are going back to the drawing boards and rethinking things.

Notanoob: Yes, I saw that post on SRK just googling "catch22 stick" one day to see if people still were interested in the Joystick builder website. Unfortunately, there are no more free options for web hosting. I'll message Myke about his offer to host it when I have more time.

For now, this was made for "Fred"...

 

I love joystick porn. Best kind of sticks are the ones with VF themes.

 

I still have 3 of the OG NAMCO Joysticks in storage. My favorite joysticks of all time. I know that Archangel and myself wish we had modded ones to use on X360. I think I still have one of the Agetec Dreamcast sticks in storage as well that I bought to play VF3tb on. Nice to see you back around.

 

You could always buy a PS1-to-360 adapter; there's a few lagless ones around.

Personally, I found the Namco TOO light, and had to sell it on.

I use a Konami Hyper Stick these days.

 

Interesting reading this. I have a cool personal story about my modded Namco sticks that I relate to yours. Back around 2004 I had finally picked up a PS2 and graduated from playing games (mostly fighting) on Dreamcast. I had a pair of Agetec green goblins ever since DC was released in Japan. (Props to ToysnJoys in HI). I loved them and wanted to have similar experiences on PS2. So I decided to pick up a couple Namco sticks off ebay. I knew that these were already great stock but I wanted to mod them regardless. Then I met a guy name John Tam who at the time had just quit his job at Capcom working on arcade cabinets. He then began working on creating the original Guitar Hero guitar at Red Octane. I told what I needed and he hooked it up. A complete Sanwa overhaul with the currently rare Flash sticks. I purposely had these sticks bought and modded to play VF4:EVO and also used them for SF3 and SFA3. Anyone who knows about the Flash stick knows it has a really short throw (square gate) making srk's, standing sonic kicks, 360's, etc effortless as well as many other motions. It felt great with VF4 and ruined other sticks when I was forced to use them.

Well one of my Flash sticks conked out years ago and its just been sitting on my shelf. I've actually had people offer me alot for it broken and I've seen Yahoo JP auctions for crazy prices working or not. I don't ever want to sell it and would like to get it working again. Zerochan said her bf may be able to repair it.

Catch22 you do magnificent work. I'm pretty sure your Namco stick mod pre-dates mine but its still cool how 7 years later I see this thread and how we have something in common. I believe had I not met John Tam I would have been sent your way for some joystick work way back then. I am strictly a Hitbox user now but will always have love for sticks and am always checking in with whats going on with them.

Here's some pictures. Btw, the one that still works was signed by Yoshinori Ono at the 2009 SF4 Gamestop Nationals here in San Francisco. He laughed and wrote CAPCOM above the Namco logo.

 

I wish I still had my Green Goblins as well as all my other DC stuff (steering wheels, etc) I sold on ebay long ago. I had 2 of everthing and this was all before the US release of Dreamcast. I still have my 2 DC Virtual On Twin Sticks with system link cable and a couple of copies of both the US and JP version of VOOT. Also have a modded Saturn VOOM stick that works with the Xbox360 version of VOOT.

 

My cousin works at Toys N Joys. You been here?

I really enjoy reading these stories. Really, thanks for sharing man. I guess I only have time reminiscing than playing any games anymore.

But yeah, that Sanwa modded stick was actually done in Summer of '02. SUMMER OF '02!!! Shit, that's the 10 year anniversary! LOL. By '04, a major crisis happened in my life- I had to start working full-time. Life happened. Drank too much, and worked too much. Funny, my friends here don't play video games now, or don't play VF. I still drink too much, but I wouldn't have done anything related to making or modding sticks. Got tons of requests, advice on taking it commercial,... just didn't have the time- one of my big regrets is not just taking my own pace and just continued. I cannot say it enough, that Joystick Building site was made so others could make their own and I'm sure it inspired it enough to inspire others, who in turn, made Hori and Mad Catz take notice. Really, nobody was using Japanese arcade parts at the time, just Happ stuff. I took it to another level, and others has since raised the bar.

It blows my mind just how much stick modding has blown up! The website I made (the joystick builder) was the first on the web with joystick teardown, and the first to utter "JLF" and "octagon gate" outside of Sanwa.

Here's some dudes on SRK who remembered me and the old site and some info (post #324 & 342):
http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?thr...rs.15808/page-7
I think I should make a SRK account. Maybe not, it kinda kills me to be tooting my own horn... or maybe I should. I just need to get the facts straight, just in case someone else claims things... and when I die, I'll be remembered for something other than a drunk LOL.

I believe I seen those optical sticks back in '02 on Sanwa's site, but I just wanted what was on the Net City cabs. Congrats on your score. If you want, and if Zerochan's bf can't fix it, I can take a look into it. Hopefully, I'll be at EVO next year.

Digging those RASTA colors man. You into reggae? JR Blender's reggae mix of Gotye's Somebody is on constant repeat on a station here, along with Rihanna's "you da one." The originals sound weird as I got used to these illegal remixes.

http://jrblender.com/promo/

Your passion for sticks is shared by me also. Haven't tried the hitbox, but I can see how much better it would be for far more precision in directional inputs.

Lastly, NICE DISPLAY CASE. Me and my brother had that same case (Ikea right?), but it housed our '01 world series (AZ vs NY) memorabilia. Got to see games 1 & 7!!!!

Those DC twin-sticks are regrettably not owned by me... and your propensity to own 2 of everything is also shared by me LOL.

2 VSHG's (farm fresh) along with a nearly unmolested Sega CD (model 1/ebay).


2 hard to find PS2 VF4Evo Hori sticks CIB (farm fresh)


2 DC JP sticks (farm fresh), 2 Ascii FT pads (farm fresh), and a single DC stick modded for PS2 (used video game store).

 

Heh, I still have a CN Dreamcast with a NA Modem. It's Region-Free Modded and I have around 100 games (75% of which are JP Editions) or so still with it. I break it out ever so often to check out MvC, SC, VF3tb, Shutoko Battle, and Shenmue mainly. I got hooked up with a decent amount of JP loot for it since I was doing mod work at a local game store a friend owned. Was fun back then because we backed the DC hardcore and had weekly Street Fighter Alpha 3, VF3tb, and Soul Calibur tournaments. The good ol' days of winning store credits. ^^ Makes me miss the old VF2, SF2, Primal Rage, MK3, and Kill Instinct tourneys as well that were held weekly at a local Putt-Putt Golf & Games.

 

Catch

I've been to HI but havent been to ToysNJoys. I've gave them a ton of business online though purchasing so many things like Japanese Transformers/Beast Wars and even think one of my Twin Sticks came from them. The picture they had of the store always made me feel like I've been there in person.

Damn 10 years is so long. You are definitely a pioneer and don't let anyone try to take that away from you. I've always had a dislike for Sony and the Playstation brand for some reason so it took a few years to give in and pick one up which was a white JP model. Took me another year to finally get a US PS2. Who knows might I have picked up the PS2 earlier I would have contacted you.


Yea I chose the button color and arrangement because of my love for reggae music. Thanks for the offer on repairing the flash stick. If things don't fall thru then hopefully we'll both be at EVO and you can take a look at it. I was told it may have a voltage problem. Have no idea.

 

well, it took me 10 years, but I finally did

 

i bought my first stick off john tam aka armadillo from srk around 2003-04.

it was a piece of crap redoctane with chinese fake happs parts and it was the stick where i learned my ume shoryu skills.

i even picked up that stick at capcom when it was still in sunnyvale.

small world

on another note, cobratron if you just want a replacement for your flash pcb a guy makes them here http://www.godlikecontrols.com/ its called sparkce and has adjustable sensitivity and will fit in any jlf type joystick.

personally i think jlf flash is bunk, like a loose vagina with no feeling.

 

WTF??? You stole my stick...

 

This?


This looks like a knock off of the MAS.

The humor of VFDCers... can't be beat man, can't be beat. LOL. Oh. Man.

Again, I gotta say that this whole Joystick thing has blown up. The whole fighting game scene is blowing up. Man, where have I been... Custom sticks everywhere...

 

Small world indeed...it took him (armadillo) awhile to complete because he was just about to get married and also transitioned to red octane. I read about how flash's were an acquired taste back when I decided on them and they were so different then the regular jlf's and jlw's but I trusted that they would be good and also good feedback from him on the feel of the flash...

When I first got it I had to get used to the really short throw and the non-clickyness. Just like how hitbox was weird to get used to but now I can't even go back to stick, that's how it was for me with the flash...I couldn't use microswitch sticks anymore and just past weekend someone bought a madcatz TE modded with and optical stick and didn't feel as tight as my flash. I forgot what brand it was but it had a longer throw and felt less springy more mushy. It might be the same one you linked because he said the sensitivity could be adjusted to large degree. Still it felt better than my stock TE. I know there's other optical sticks by other brands like ASCII, etc but I've never got to try them. Most fans of optical sticks believed flash to be the best of them. Still I read sanwa discontinued them because of high failure rate. So when one of mines broke I wasn't really surprised. But I am surprised that my other one has not had any problems since I got it.

 

yeah catch it was the same case but it had colored red white and blue buttons. it was good enough to play on considering when you go to the arcade you never know the condition of what you're playing on anyways.

but at the end of the day i use this. (old pic)



not all mine but i just like this pic

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n5/akuma001/PICT0005-2.jpg

 

Hey, that's mine...

 

haha, i didn't steal neither: i "modded" i with a pink! balltop ;D
i really dig this weighty piece of sober plastic, glad i threw some trustworthy dude on a forum some money his way & cancelled my HRAP order. the thing is sitting on my TV-cabinet & my girl even allows it for cryin out loud!

no issues with 3button inputs whatsoever ('revision' S) since the very FIRST input of my SPoD never fails