Sticks of Joy

Here is my joystick collection, yes kids, this is what we used before control pads were invented. These joysticks are all based on the Atari standard and can be used on most machines of the era, for reasons I don't know they were known as "Kempston" on the Sinclair Spectrum
There was a Sinclair standard which used the same socket and plug combination, but with different wiring, some joysticks had two plugs for this reason, the black was the Atari standard, and the grey was the Sinclair standard. Under Amstrad's reign of terror they made a SInclair Joystick called the SJS1.
The Sega Master System control pad used the same wiring as the Atari standard, but had two buttons, which would later be adopted by the Commodore Amiga etc
There was six wires as a minimum, a common wire, then a wire for each direction, and one for fire. Depending on which direction the stick was pushed, a switch would connect that direction wire with the common wire to make the connection and the host computer or console would register the movement
Later controllers with more buttons than available pins which used the same style plug would use a shift register to read all the inputs

Random cheap and nasty joystick

I don't know who made this joystick, but it feels cheap, it clearly doesn't use micro switches, and feels mushy and horrible to use



Powerplay Cruiser

This joystick has a collar that can be adjusted to loosen or tighten the stick for the comfort of the user



Zipstick

This is a great little joystick, but I don't have much info about it, other than it's fully micro switched



Spectravideo Quickshot Python 1M

I have two of these, they were my main joystick for my Amiga years, they had an autofire feature, and had a switch so they could be used on multiple machines, but not the Sinclair. In Sega mode the two fire buttons were independent, so you could play games that supported two fire buttons



Konix Speedking

I remember seeing this joystick in adverts back in the day, and thinking "How does that work?" But after using it, it actually makes sense, and feels great. You can see it's missing the plastic stick part, but the files to 3D print them are available, so I will be ordering one soon



Group photo



All lined up and ready to go, you can see the cable lengths here, shortest on the right, which is the cheapest/nastiest joystick, through to the longest on the left, which of course, are the Quickshots

For more retro hardware check out my online museum here