I played it for a while afterwards and I have to agree it's a good little game, made all the sweeter when you finally have a real analog stick to play it with. Thanks for watching Joel ;)
Thanks very much Ken. The PC to Coco joystick switch is a handy trick to know if ever you really need a Coco joystick fast but just can't find one, I can't think of that being a situation that anyone would ever find themselves in but who knows. Still knowledge is power as they say ;)
What are you waiting for Rudy? Get that Coco out and take it for a spin. Oh, I'm sure that you saw the Apple II running Donkey Kong to test the joystick. I made up a little dongle to let any PC joystick run on it without any mods and I've been playing around with the Apple a lot. I'll have 3-4 videos along over the coming months all about the Apple IIe you sent me. Really Rudy, I can't thank you enough ;)
Hey viditibi making your own joystick would be another way to go, but with the prices of PC joysticks at the moment buying one on Ebay would be just a fraction of the cost. What's more, most have auto-fire and the ability to self centre built in. But what really stopped me from trying my own joystick build a few years ago when I first got my Coco was that getting the pots to adjust when the stick is moved is really hard to do (too hard for me to figure out anyway) that's why I settled for using my "Frankenpaddle" controller that I made to play games that needed an analog stick. It worked but it wasn't a joystick.
Great video, mate ... ive a big box of joysticks, and I mod them when I need one for another system ... if I ever get a dragon, I'll tey this mod .. cheers
I like the analog conversion dongle idea for my dragon, that game looked interesting, back in the day I played "defense" on the dragon for the missile command type game, hadn't heard of that one 👍
I've not played defense before. I'll look it up and see if I can get it to load on the Coco. I think that the Colour Computer had three or four missile command clones in all Polaris is one of the best as I've heard, but I can't be sure I've not played the others. If you've not got a joystick for your dragon you should give it a go, it really does work a treat.
I played both - Defense was originally by Spectral Associates (who sold most of their catalog for the Dragon as well, I think usually through Microdeal) and it's game play is more similar to the Atari 2600 version of Missile Command (one place to fire from, which can reload up to 2 times per round). Polaris (originally a cartridge game from Radio Shack that predates the Dragon, having been released in November of 1981) is closer to the arcade with 3 different submarines to fire from, and you gain the advantage of choosing subs closer to the missiles so you can take them out faster.
Cool mod thank you! Yeah it's hard to resist not cracking these things open. I thought it was going to be for Bob at first. By the way I think you should make little teddy like stuffed versions of Bob and sell them as a special edition with the game. I would certainly buy one!
Makes me happy to have an analog joystick for the ol' Coco at last. I thought about how to make a PC stick work in the past but I got hung up on pot values and all kinds of stuff that it seams doesn't at all matter. But it was hard to find any info on this at all on the net in fact but thankfully it turned out to be an easy enough mod to do ;) I toyed with the idea of making a Bob paddle game and I may yet but you know what? I think that it would be easy enough to write some kind of simple game that used the two paddle controllers to control a sprite with each paddle button doing something different. Then get rid of the paddles and replace them with a joystick like the QS123 in the video wired specially for the Atari 2600. If I'm not mistaken it would be the first (or at least one of the very few) games ever written for a 2600 to use an analog 2 button joystick. This retro stuff is fun :)
@@8bitsinthebasement I love the old joysticks. I picked up these huge Wingman that used to cost so much for ten bucks at the thrift store around here and one of them is in the box, practically new. Well I wasn't kidding Peter, if you finish that game, with or without a Bob joystick or teddy bear, I would seriously buy one. Yes I agree this retro stuff is fun. I just wish I had more time (and funding) to do it all. Can't wait to see more of Bob and your progress! Cheers! PS I just noticed you also added me in your list. Thank you so much!
Most likely, but there is nothing at all refined about this Robot. He laughs in the face of nibbles cause they are but a 1/2,000,000th of a MEGABYTE. Changing his firmware may calm him a little though ;)
Not only that, but I went out of my way to buy an inappropriate joystick. I've got a whole 10% (makes for about 100+) of Colour computer games to discover now ;)
@@8bitsinthebasement - One of these days (when I catch up the Coco games site), I should make a list of the games that require analog sticks. Project Nebula and Intercept 4 are two off the top of my head that I know of where you will need 2 analog joysticks. :)
Lol @ your joke! Thanks for this info. I'll give this mod a try. The original joystick looks terrible to use. It looks like trying to hold a pencil. Plus the fire button on the front looks really uncomfortable to use.
I'm not sure if I went too hard on the original joysticks or not. But almost all of what I've heard describes them as being clunky and uncomfortable. PC joysticks come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and there's one to suit everyone (what's more they are still quite cheap) combined with an easy enough mod to make them work on a Coco they make for a really great alternative Colour Computer stick. I'm not surprised you liked the joke, my suite of robot jokes are legendary ;)
@@8bitsinthebasement - We did get used to the old "black beauties" (I had the original aluminum handled ones - I actually unscrewed the main part of the handle and put a small wad of silly putty on the the place it attached to to make a thumb operated analog stick - I was years ahead of time). lol. The Deluxe joysticks (which are literally Kraft joysticks like the Apple & PC had as well, just rebranded either Radio Shack or Tandy) are pretty decent, although some of the inside arms tend to break after a lot of use over the years. Luckily 3D printed parts are a thing now.
@@8bitsinthebasement Some friends got RC controllers that maybe could go this way. I will research, but I do need CP400 originals (similar to black beauty).
@@8bitsinthebasement Yes, it is essentially the same. But I think your over-complicating it. All you need to do is splice the two fire buttons together (most games only used one fire button) and use the spare wire to hook up to the of both the unpopulated points on each of the sliders. Then rewire the end plug that goes into the joystick port accordingly...that's it.
I see what you're saying and it's a good way of doing it. But it's good to have two separate buttons for the Coco mod. Although the Coco 1 and 2 only use one fire button the Coco 3 uses two in some games. I could have changed the wiring in the connector I made between the stick and the Coco too (to limit the work in the joystick itself) but in the end it's more or less the same thing and the joystick can easily be changed back for a PC if ever I want to. Thanks for your input ;)
@@8bitsinthebasement just hook up a spare wire to the two pot posts if you don't want to splice the 2 fire buttons together , even simpler. Then just ignore it if plugging into a PC and don't if you are using your Coco adaptor, then you won't have to rewire anything, just use you adaptor with the spare wire attached...easy peasy. (You may have to swap around the wires on your adaptor)
Yeah, but it was fun to fool around with and see working in the end. The other reason is that here in Europe a $30 dollar stick will cost at best double that after shipping and import taxes. What's more it's very hard to find Tandy black beauty or deluxe sticks for sale here and if you do then the prices are very high. At least this way for about $8 and an hour of my time I have a great stick that works perfectly with my Coco. Thanks very much for watching and taking the time to leave a comment ;)
