Mini Monster Retro Gaming Joystick | Ashens 

props to anyone who remembers Ashens' old joystick roundup video and was reminded of it during the first few minutes of this.

"I'm the kind of freak who has arcade parts sitting around his house" Yes... Yes you do. We all remember when you did that beer bread cooking thing and found an arcade board in your oven.

"because I have arcade parts in my house" *has flashbacks to when he had motherboards in his oven*

I love hearing you yammer on about microswitches because I am now convinced that gaming joysticks from 30 years ago need them to be good even though I'll never use one.

He has the Bart. *HE HAS THE BART.*

Can you please make another video just covering old joysticks again? I've watched the original so much I can pretty much recall every word of it

2:03 Think the controller is supposed to be a frog. Green body, yellow eyes for buttons, pink tongue sticking out.

It's sad how empty the case looks.

Ahh! I was afraid there wouldn't be a "things with eyes are creepy" bit in this one. But Stuart did not disappoint. It's even funnier the 10,000th time!

I literally just shat a brick when you mentioned that switch on the back. I need this for Turrican.

You have both an Amiga and a ST setup, ready, for EMERGENCY purposes? What a charmed life you lead Ashens.

Joysticks are big in the fighting game community. My first console was an Atari 2600 Jr. One joystick and one button.

My hand cramps just looking at these old controllers. So many years using them. :)

Oh I how I know the feeling of being “that weird guy with a bunch of arcade parts lying around”

I had that green, yellow and pink joystick for my Amstrad. The beginning of my garish collection of joysticks/joypads.

oh god lord my dad had a CD32 and i used to love it when i was younger, i remember the stupid joy pad tho, my dad ended up taking it off and supergluing the thing down because i managed to pull it off all tho i was young, damn you ashens you made me remember the good old days

I remember struggling to figure out which was the "good" joystick for my Atari 2600. There was the one that didn't do diagonals, the one that you had to *lean* on to go right, and the one that the button only worked 1/3 of the tine. Ah memories.

Those buttons do have micro switches in them, those parts look like they’re made by MD who do us micro switches in their buttons. They’re just the Asian style low weight ones as opposed to the US/Euro style heavy ones that have a strong click to them. Low weight buttons are the modern standard because they’re better for fighting games.

I quite like this, have always been a fan of the clear plastic look. Cheers Stuart, good review.

Gutted you didn't have a Bug. Was really looking forward to seeing the old thing. Absolutely loved it. Didn't knacker your hands and really good for waggling!

Ashens:"We took some bits out and put some other bits in." NASA:"You're hired!" *crowd cheers*

Back in the 80's they really thought that joysticks were a good form of control. Even back then, as much of a naive kid I was, I realized that they weren't really all that good, no matter how much I believed they ought to be. I had some joystick for my 8-bit system... but I didn't use it much because, frankly, it was extremely impractical and annoying to use. Nintendo was really the first one to realize what a good game controller should be like. All game controllers are based on that initial design (even though they obviously have become more ergonomic and with more buttons).

Wow! Just wow! I watched like this guy's video like 2 years ago then i found his video on my feed, im so suprised he stills keep the couch

5:21 did make me smile... as for the joystick what a brilliant idea with the switch creating a jump button ! Had a c64 mini for Christmas and it's joystick is terrible. Just ordered the retro 9 pin usb converter so I can plug my zipstick into it but I want one of these now too. Thanks for uploading mate.

How come all these bloody ancient sticks have micro switches, but SNK couldn’t put them in the new Neo Geo pads cuz “it be hard”?

Oke this is really awesome video, Never get tired of the ashen couch and your lovely accent !

"Up to jump, is of the devil" ~Stuar Ashens, 2019 *Tap-Jump Smash Player is offended* *[Name a Fighting Game] Player is offended*

I never had a joystick, but your video of the joystick round up is my favorite video on all of youtube

looks like a nice joystick, i bet the one with sanwa arcade parts is great, the ability to map up to a button is a godsend for the amiga too :) nice review

I really like how you explain the old joysticks in this video instead of just linking to the old video about joysticks

Ahh, Xenon. Happy memories of Colin"s Bargain Basement.

youtuber UpIsNotJump would enjoy this product 😁

Definitely' like the back switch to remap "up" to a button for the reasons described! I too would probably want the microswitch buttons just for the sake of a consistent feel throughout, but as long as the squishy-type buttons respond well, like they are, I don't see anyone having any practical issues with them either.

I had all those old sticks and more including the grenade style controller with the nub style stick on the top, surprisingly was my favourite. I had the warrior 5 and the quick shot one that looked like a set of handlebars. Oh the memories. I went through so many and they all have gone now. So sad.

At 5:58 I stood up, saluted and screamed "GENIUS!"

I had a very similar micro-switched Maverick by Quickshot, I soon learned the more expensive micro-switched controllers lasted longer than their cheaper counterparts back in the Amiga daze.

hell even £55 is a pretty good price 30ish is a steal, the fact you can map jump to a button is worth well over £55

Other than the clear plastic that looks like a really good professional joystick. Reminds me a lot of fight sticks of modern times

I saluted. Bloody up-jumps.

Ugh, up to jump. I'm glad I wasn't around long enough to have to deal with that stuff. Funnily enough, when you brought up the button remap switch I was initially confused at first, but then all of the memories of the AVGN came flooding back to me and I remembered "Oh, right, some games used up as the jump button. Oh god."

Lionheart supported 2 buttons (best amiga game ever btw. and bloody beautiful pixelart it has!)

For a moderately large portion of my childhood, I had been playing with plug-in-play devices. High school musical, blues clues, and Cinderella. It was quite nice.

Gotta say that see-through or not, it's a nice looking controller. Would look great in an arcade cabinet setup!

Agh! Those goddamn clicks are so satisfying I don't want them to end! Make a video with just the audio of you just rotating around those joysticks for several hours!

I was going to say Turrican 2 but you beat me to it. BTW: The Commodore 64 was rather popular here in the states, but it was more like an 'underground' kind of thing. It was rarely advertised and very few computer stores carried software so we either had to order them via catalog or copy floppies (which was more common). The Amiga 500 sadly wasn't as popular because hardly anyone could afford it but I managed to get my hands on one and two other people in my town that I knew of at the time. Both were excellent computers.

Msx computers had 9 pin jacks with two separate joystick button inputs that were used by Japanese games. Branded joysticks implemented this and many others had a switch to enable 2 separate buttons. Atari 7800 also had two inputs on 9 pin jacks

The thing I like about this arcade stick is the lid can be flipped to make it left or right handed.

The MSX also supported 2 separate buttons, which in fairness didn't have that many games that needed them, but it certainly made playing Nemesis and Salamander a lot easier, seeing as how you'd need a button for firing, and another for using the powerups. Also: yay for clicky sticks and whatnots.

Seeing the option of switching up to a button makes me think of the old Starplex controller, which mapped all the directions to separate buttons in order to duplicate the controls of the arcade version of Asteroids and other titles that didn't originally use joysticks. Like racing games, a lot of ports of Space War type shooters would map thrust to up on the stick.

I remember using Speed King 2 for c64. A simplistic and great joystick. Very durable, and incredible to use on games that was reliant to wiggle the joystick from side to side to gain speed/runspeed like games like Track and Field 2.

I Remember the Fisher-Price coloured Quick Shot joystick from when back in the day we had an Amiga 500 with the expansion. What fun to play with Lotus Turbo 2, 3 and Desert Strike. Thanks.

I'll second this. These are bloody good and easy to assemble. Work brilliantly on the Amiga.

you should do a video of you installing the micro switches

This is the content I originally subscribed for

Something like this would be awesome for a custom cabinet build. You could get an old CRT, set up a Raspberry Pi or something similar, and mount that control box in a square/rectangular hold. The curved top trim would cover it perfectly.

I'm from America and I did have a Joystick for a console. Back when I had an NES, I had a NES Advantage which was a pretty big chunky first party joystick with a slow button and turbo buttons.

At the end i was hoping he would be playing with the bart controller.

I'm about ten years younger than you (or in the ball park at least) and I feel old all the time online. Then you make me feel like a young'un. Oh how technology has changed our perception of time.

Good old quickshot that was my first gaming experience with prehistoric on Amiga

Here in the US, joysticks were more common than gamepads in the early 1980s. From the arcades to Atari, Commodore (and other home computers of the time) and Odyssey 2 (Videopac G7000 in Europe I recall), they all had joysticks. With the intro of the Nintendo Entertainment System, consoles no longer needed a joystick for most games, but (mostly) third-parties still produced them. But for the PC these days certain types of games really benefit from a good joystick (fighting games and flight sims, especially, as well as authentically recreating the feel of an arcade game in MAME).

I could've sworn I've used one of these joysticks before but I couldn't remember it. But I swear I get nostalgic whenever I see these old retro controllers for some reason.

Flashback allowed you to use 2 buttons on the Amiga version if you switched the switch on your joystick to Sega. You could un/holster your gun with one button and was it jump with the other button? I think without the Sega mode you had to use the spacebar to un/holster the gun.

Up to jump is a good title for your next book, covering the controllers and other input devices from retro computers and such.

I actually stood up, saluted and shouted GENIUS!

You can mod the two button joy sticks for up as a button. Solder a small wire from where the pad connects on the PCB (or the microswitch itself) to the up direction and then solder it connected to a two way switch. Then solder from the two way switch, using another small wire to a button's microswitch, or again PCB pad. mount the switch in to the joysticks housing. you can flick the switch to turn it off and on. Pretty simple mod if you want it modern retro. I was one of those weird people who liked the bug joy stick.

Awesome. I love the switch.

mapping the up to a button is game changing

Bomb da bass tune at the end 👍 and would love to see a joypad version 😏

Nice! I might pick one up for the atari 2600. I already found one of those "competition" style mini versions for it.

I stood up, and saluted the genius.

If Ringo Starr is the Human Metronome, your friend is the Human Turbo Button.

I once saw an atari 2600 usb joystick, but I didnt feel like buying it since i can either use a saturn controller or ps4 controller on my atari emulator

Pastel Cruiser FTW! Played hundreds of hours with that bad boy. Mostly on the first few screens of Chubby Gristle.

You are wrong, Mr. Ashens. Almost all 8-bit computers would in theory support 2 independent buttons. The only one I'm not 100% sure is the Spectrum. It just didn't get widely supported by any games. Except on the MSX computers. Quite a few MSX games do support a 2nd button. Also the Amstrad CPC had a 2nd button in its specs for the joystick port and I think I have actually encountered at least one game on it that supports this. That's the reason why some joysticks have a switch where you can select between Atari/CPC/MSX and SEGA. The 2nd button works differently on all of them and I think you can actually kill a C64 if you press the 2nd button on a MSX joystick plugged into the C64.

Back in the day the Apple II series used two-button joysticks. It also used analog - which was both a blessing and a curse.

First time I laid hands on a joystick (that I can recall) was at my uncle's house in his basement. It was 1990 and I was playing Wing Commander.

When he said joysticks, I immediately thought of Arcade sticks. And when he said that Americans wouldn't remember them I'm like "uhhh....tons of people use them for fighting games." Like the millions made by Madkatz and Quanba and whatnot, and he eventually gets on to some of those, but the first one he was showing makes me think more of a flight-stick because they were commonly used (at least when I was growing up) for flight or Mech style games and not much else.

I did all the assembly as you said, and dropped a raspberry pie in. It was only after I tried using it, I realized you were talking about the small home computer chip thing.

An excellent joystick I still have my original Quickshot 2 Turbo, and it still works. You could use a Master System controller with an Amiga, and both buttons worked as different ones.

The comcon for the ZX spectrum supported two buttons and as it was keyboard mapped in hardware it worked with all games that had two seperate functions you might need those for. I also bought their terrible joystick but i also had two seperate buttons. :D

I want this in usb. Love the clear.

I had an Amiga joystick back in the day, I have never held anything so stiff an unwieldy in my hands ever again in my life.

Super Street Fighter 2 definitely supported two buttons - I think Shadow Fighter by Gremlin did, as did Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat 2? Lovely vid, all the retro feels! Really tempted to grab one of these retro sticks myself - that up remap switch is teriffic!

i had a centipede and a galaga cabinet arcade machines, I MISS THEM 😭😭😭

Damn! I haven’t seen one of those Fisher Price joysticks since the day I used to have an Amiga 500 back in the early 90s.

I'm building my own retro style computer / arcade retro pie project. Lots of 3D printed parts and glue. Just designed and put together the joystick and button part of the unit which was relatively easy to do. I have 10 buttons which cost about 18 pounds which was fine. Still printing the parts bit by bit (I designed the whole thing from scratch) but should be a nice weird looking rustic unit when done. I too am not a fan of the clear cases and prefer something more solid. :) This looks good though if you want a quick solution.

I had a quick shot 2 for my Spectrum+ 48k. Playing games was great with it,especially "Elite"

More,more,more retro gaming please, thanks

When he told us what the switch does, I stood and applauded.

That look pretty cool,actually.

GENIUS!

Map jump to button - pure genius.

Those bloody running games where you had to waggle left and right repeatedly. Many a snapped joystick and blisters on hands!

0:43. You know in TV shows when the amnesiac finally breaks the amnesia and everything comes crashing back to them? Yeah, that. Gods that joystick was a pain...

Ashens and retro gaming? Yes please!

Gotta love that Xenon tune.

there's something so satisfying about the sound of microswitches

I know nothing about about half of the systems you mentioned, but I suddenly understand the username UpIsNotJump

Oh my god, the up to jump fix is shear genius

Oh my...the first poster on an Ashens video for the first time ever.