Joystick for Apple IIe

The Atari joystick was digital (switches) while the Apple joystick was analog (potentiometers). So they aren't the same, or really even compatible. There are conversion circuits around, but you really want to get the genuine article. You can often find Apple joysticks for sale on the likes of eBay.

The BBC Micro joysticks use 10K pots, Apple II joysticks use 150K pots, IBM PC joysticks use 100K pots.

You're best off trying to find a real Apple II joystick. Here in the US, they're not uncommon at all, so you might look on eBay US to see if anyone's willing to ship to where you are (I'm assuming the UK).

Looks like the Tac-1+ has a switch to go between Apple and IBM. That should work, although there could be some sensitivity or range issues if it wasn't done right.

IMHO CH made the best joysticks for Apple II's. The three button one's were pretty sweet, and you used to see them on ebay fairly frequently. They were relatively durable, and I think that all the CH models had a slide switch for each axis that would had several settings towards disengaging the center return springs. They also had trim adjustments for each potentiometer that controlled each access. The fine tuning could be important for certain games or graphics applications, if you didn't want the cross hairs to drift, for example.

Mutant Pie

Hi,

There are two main ways to make Atari Joysticks work on the Apple II. Each method will only work with certain software.

Method 1 (Joyport)
http://lukazi.blogspot.com/2009/04/game-controller-atari-joysticks.html

Method 2 (Limit the resistance range)
http://www.atariarchives.org/ccc/chapter9.php
(Missing schematic for this page is here :- http://www.atariarchives.org/ccc/fig9-3.gif)
What you need to achieve for each axis is :- eg y-axis, 0k ohm to apple when digital joystick is up (up button pressed), 75k ohm when digital joystick is in middle (up and down buttons off) and 150k ohm when joystick is down (down button pressed). The software just sees this as an 8 bit number (0 = up, 127 = middle, 255 = down). To get that going you will need more than just a few resistors. Unless you build the joystick yourself using micro switches. See Fig 5-5 at http://www.atariarchives.org/ccc/chapter5.php

What you don't want is to go through the effort of building a converter only to find out that it will not work with your favourite game.

I'm in Australia and I found that buying from the US was not all that bad. I found that sometimes you can pick up a joystick really cheap while other times you will find a seller in the US that will ship using a cheaper method (via a postoffice instead of a courier).

I was in the same position a few years back. Getting an apple II joystick resulted in a lot less frustration.

Good Luck.