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Could anyone with an actual Apple ][ Joystick and a caliper post some actual dimensions?
Would love an acutal Apple ][ Joystick (A2M2002), but like other nostalgic devices from my youth, their value has now risen above my budget. Therefore, I am switching to assembling icons of those memorable devices rather than the devices themselves.
I am starting to create a 3D Printable model for the A2M2002 Joystick (and will likely do a A2M2001 Paddle too) but I don't have an example to measure. I have lots of photos, so I can probably get a quite accurate reproduction with some basic height and width numbers by extrapolating the rest from the photos. I also *suspect* that the case dimensions were identical between the A2M2002 and the A2M2012.
Any help appreciated!
The A2M2002 is 83.5mm x 83.5mm at it's widest (there is a very slight bulge to the vertical walls).
The height at the tallest part of the body (the square where it's raised up surrounding the stick) is 54.4mm.
The height of the rest of the body (the level where the buttons are) is 43.4mm.
The raised square area is 62.1mm x 62.1mm (at the part where the raised square meets the body), and tapers to 58.6mm x 58.6mm at the very tallest part.
The orange square buttons are 12.6mm x 12.6mm.
I'm actually in the same boat as you. Just re-inherited my childhood Apple IIC but unfortunately a lot of stuff disappeared over the years including our cherished joystick collection. I am running a Prusa MK3S clone farm in my garage.
And then upon searching for joysticks found out that your price range for a great condition tested controller goes up to about $200. :-(
I'm looking to invest in a 3D scanner and invest in some joysticks for the cause. Going to take awhile to find some at a reasonable price (for 3D scanning, completely broken ones will be fine). I'll bookmark this post and report back if I have any luck. Would be nice to "digitize" the data for posterity. My background is electronics so in addition to potentially being able to 3D print the case, hoping to be able to recreate the gimbals either with ABS or PC (or aluminum CNC) and update the design files to be able to house whatever modern electronics would work natively with an apple.
Long-term project, hopefully I don't end up just being a ghost-poster, just wanted to pop in and tell you that I like where you're going! In the long term, there won't be enough hardware to go around for all the enthusiasts. Will need to take the hardware cloning to the next level as this gear keeps on aging...
Allrighty, I got one off e-bay. Didn't work at first by DeOxit fixed it right up. Everything's cleaned.
Looking around for 3D scanning services that might be able to tackle this job. Not sure what it would cost. Seems like high resolution 3D desktop scanners are $5k+.
Would be nice to capture all the hardware and then we could tweak the plastic case and plastic parts to accept newer style potentiometers and newer style button switches. I know this is all high quality molded plastic and a 3D printer replica wouldn't hold up, but would still be nice to have the 3D data for this fine specimen.
A2M2002 guts.jpg
Thanks so much for your interest and help, Odingalt!
I appologize that i didn't reply earlier - I thought the forum tab was refreshing when I reloaded, but it wasn't :( I've been busy so wouldn't have made progress in recent weeks anyway.
I will post here once I have some parts 3-d modelled for printing but likely not till after December because my desktop computer died.
Durability of 3d printed parts depends a lot on what material is used. There may be something that would hold up fairly well. The other option is that 3d printing could be used for creation of molds for casting of parts out of a more durable resin plastic material. Casting isn't always as good as injection molding, especially not for speed of manufacture, but it could be used to make some of those parts out of more durable materials, mainly due to being solid peices instead of layers of material printed together.
Could you snap a picture of the opposite side of the potentiometers where the markings are visible? I am trying to figure out what pots they used originally. Thanks!
Both used 150K potentiometer values. The actual value isn't critical but are most likely chosen to provide a light load on the 5 volt supply. 100K would work but the recommended value is 150K. I hope this helps.
Was the question also related to size? They appear to be the same as standard pots used in guitars, but those come in several variations in terms of the stem length and how it may be splined.
Size doesn't matter, but you are correct in that their size in the game paddle and joystick were about the same size as in electric guitars. The resistance and wattage rating is was really matters. These pots were typically 150K ohm, 1/4 watt and even these come in a variety of case diameters and shaft diameter and shape configurations.
Here is an example:
https://ca-en.alliedelec.com/product/nte-electronics-inc-/501-0049/70720580/
Paddle shafts had splined ends for slipping on a knob while joystick pots often had a flat on the shaft's end for mounting hardware the joystick handle slide in.
150K pots are an oddball value. Why Woz chose that, I have no idea. Maybe they were cheaper or maybe they just happened to work property with the value caps and timer he used on the motherboard. If I ever get a chance to talk to him, questions about some design decisions like that might be what I'd ask. Anyway, in my opinion choosing 150K wasn't one of his beter moves. The most common and standard values are 5K, 10K, 50K, 100K, 250K, 500K, 1M. There are two common sizes, "dime size" and "quarter size". Normally for guitars, 250K pots are used with single coil pickups (most Fenders) and 500k pots are used with double coil (humbucking) pickups (most Gibsons). American made guitars traditonally used the larger "quarter size" pickups and the cheaper import guitars usually used the smaller "dime size" ones. Also with some of the cheaper and crappier Fender copies they'd even substitute 500K pots and use the wrong value caps, even though it tended to give those guitars a really shrill and bad tone. That wasn't helped by the fact that most of those cheap Strat clones used ceramic magnet pickups instead of alnico magnets.
Most pots used in guitars are a standard short shaft left, split and splined due to the type of "push on" knobs normally used. Many other applications use smooth shaft or D-shaft and depending on the panel they go through if any, they may need shorter or longer shafts.
Anyway, that's probably a lot more detail on pots as far as guitars go than most people are interested in...
Some Apple II joysticks use 250k pot or posibly even 500K pots, but the gimball mechanism only uses a portion of the rotation of the pot shaft so the used values are 0 ohms to 150K ohms.
So are the originals some sort of special pots that only travel 45 degrees instead of the usual 270-300 degrees??
According to the specs a potentiometer value of 0 ohms corresponds to 0 and 150K corresponds to 255. However the joystick lever only pivots around 20 degrees in each direction, giving it a maximum range of 40 degrees. And since there are no gears, this is how much the potentiometer travels too. Regular pots travel between 270 and 300 degrees. So in order to achieve a 150K range on a regular 270 degrees linear potentiometer, it has to be around 1 megaohm, right? (270° / 40° x 150K = 1015.5K)
It would be awesome if someone measures the resistance of one of the pots with the lever at the center and then at the two extreme positions.
That's what I was trying to say in the post previous to yours. The joystick gimball mechanism only uses part of the rotation of the pot. From the amount you are saying, it is probably a good guess they are using a 1M pot with the normal amount of rotation but the joystick only uses the portion of it from 0K to 150K.
There are so many possible guesses, especially if non-stadard pots were used, which is why I am trying to figure out the exact parameters of the ones used in the original Apple II joystick.
I don't have one of those to take apart and meter. I'm surprised someone hasn't done it already.
Is the one pictured above still apart so that the measurements could be taken or would someone else have to do it?
I'll have to see if I have any pics from when I had mine apart. But I found in two different sticks pots measuring 114k, 118k, and 136k. I wound up having to tweak a cap in my IIe, because the sticks would not read the full range on it. However, the sticks read the full range on my IIc and IIgs fine. It only came to my attention as Conan is a game that actually changes walking speed to running speed based on the analog stick. I couldn't run in one direction, making the game impossible on my IIe, but playable on my IIc and IIgs with the same sticks. The IIe components were measuring within spec, I just had to bump up one cap higher in the spec. The thread with my findings is below.
https://www.applefritter.com/content/iie-joystick-issue
Edit: all my pics are mostly of the mechanics, so I knew how to reassemble after cleaning and lubing the plastic pieces. I can pop open one of my sticks again later and try and get a picture of the back of the pot. I also recently picked up a 3rd party stick that was switchable between A2 and IBM. It had 1meg pots in it.
Actually I already found a picture here, but it doesn't say much: click!
I guess what I really need is the actual resistance when the lever is at the left, center and right positions and also across pins 1 and 3 of the potentiometer, in order to determine its actual value.
I quick opened mine. The pot markings were almost identical. After the 137/ they differed slightly, saying 8648 instead. As per my thread I linked to previously one measured 135k and the other 118k end to end.
Depending on which end you checked, while in the center the 135k pot wiper read 66k/77k, the 118k pot wiper read 64k/59k.
They both showed that they traveled almost the entire range. The 135k pot read 16 ohms moved one way, and 131k when moved the opposite way. The 118k pot read 24 ohms one way and 115k moved the other way.
But what about across pins 1 and 3 of the potentiometer? (Its actual value.)
I had said they measured end to end (pins 1 to 3 as you are calling it) 135k and the other 118k.
That's the critical measure, since other things in the stick wiring can alter what the value is at the connector.
Also measuring the pot at its full travel, not just what the stick mechanics allow.
Wow, this really means that they are special potentiometers that only rotate 45 degrees!
It seems the rotate more than that, as the usable range when connected to the mechanism is only about 3-4k short of the max. The 135k pot runs 16 ohms to 131k ohms. And the 118k pot runs 24ohms to 115k when connected to the mechanism. I'm not disassembling the whole mech any further, as it's kind of a pain to pull apart and back together again. So this is the best I can tell you.
I have a set of Apple paddles/hand controllers. But I can't seem to get the knob off to get to the screw that I believe is under them to be able to open and measure the pots in them.
Thank you! No need to disassemble any further, you already helped me with the information I needed. You are right, it's not only 45 degrees. I measured the maximum lever pivot more accurately now with a protractor and it's 25 degrees in each direction, which means 50 degrees total from side to side. So the pot needs to be able to rotate at least that much. It probably has a 60 degree rotation range.
The reason I am asking all these questions is because I have 4 bulgarian clones and for some reason they decided to use 1 megaohm 300 degree LOGARITHMIC pots! This is terrible, as when I center both axes to be at 75K, the X-axis goes from 50K to 97K, while the Y-axis goes from 1 ohm to 172K. As a result the X-axis cannot cover the full range, while the Y-axis goes to either extreme if I barely touch it!
I wanted to change the pots to the Apple II originals, but I think those will be impossible to find, so I will change them to linear 1M with a standard 270 or 300 degree rotation range.
Joystick.JPG
On topic: this thing has 22 separate parts, 16 of which are unique, so getting everything ready to be 3D printed would be a huge undertaking.
In a batch of stuff I picked up mid last year was an Emco brand joystick. It's switchable between A2 and IBM. It also uses 1Mohm pots. No idea what the rotation is on them.
I would say it maxes out the axis on the apple somewhere between 50% and 75% of the throw in any direction. It's also very jittery, so I suspect the pots need to be cleaned out. It apparently can disconnect the centering springs, so it can be used more like a paddle instead of a joystick.
From your posts I believe you are over in Europe? There is this 150k Taiwan made pot that on the surface looks like it may do the job. Or at least be a lot closer than your 1M pots. Not sure if you could find a distributor over there that carries it.
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Alpha-Taiwan/RV16AF-10-15R1-B10K-3CLA
No, that's a 10K potentiometer. Mine look like this and I don't think I'll have any trouble finding the linear 1 megaohm version:
LogPots.JPG
Oops, that's what I get for pasting a part number into Google and expecting it to give me exact results. And not things similar to it. I had found this 150k one at Jameco and googled the part number to see if anyone else carried it. I saw mouser came up in the results and don't double check the actual part as I was in a hurry.
https://www.jameco.com/z/RV16AF-10-15R1-B150K-Taiwan-Alpha-150k-125mW-20-0-590-Long-Round-Shaft-24mm-Linear-Taper-Potentiometer_2268631.html
This one doesn't work either, because according to its datasheet it's 300 degree rotation, but only 150K. Since the lever can only rotate it by 50 degrees, it will be able to sweep only through the first 25K, which is not enough. If it's rotation range is 300 degrees, it must be 1 megaohm, so that the lever can sweep though the first 150K.
The exact model I am looking for is Tesla TP280 - 1 Mohm. This is the liner version and the TP281 is the logarithmic.
Alpha and CTS also make linear taper 1M Ohm pots in that size with short, split splined shafts that may work. The rotation on most of them is around 300 degrees or so.
Actually I already found the ones I was looking for from a local supplier in Bulgaria and got 8 for under a dollar each. They are however with a long shaft and a switch, but all I have to do is take their linear carbon strips and put them inside my pots. They are very easy to open and I already finished changing one of the joysticks.
Linear.JPG
Otherwise if anyone is looking for new pots, these will also work, since the joystick's calibrating mechanism that allows a small rotation of the entire body of the pot supports a left-side nub too.
Here is another picture of the disassembled and assembled calibration mechanism. All the parts for the X and Y-axis are the same, except for the green piece, which needs to differ in height in order for the two axis to properly interlock. As I mentioned earlier this is a bulgarian clone from 1986, but I know for a fact that they copied the dimensions of the original very accurately and they didn't even round them to metric.
Not sure why they used so many different colors though, but… it is what it is.
CalibrationMech.JPG
Important correction: these WILL NOT work. I got them a few months ago and finally had a chance to try them. The threaded tube around the shaft is of slightly smaller diameter, so the special plastic nut that is part of the joystick cannot be screwed to it and there is no space for the metal nut that they come with.