Arcade Joystick

This idea has been a long time in the cooker. I've been wanting to put together an Arcade style joystick since my Commodore days. I finally just did it:

I ordered one of these from amazon:

"Easyget Zero Delay Pc Arcade Game Joystick Cabinet DIY Parts Kit for Mame Jamma & Fighting Games Support All Windows Systems - Color Black Kit"

It came today:




The unboxing.


It came in a bunch plastic bags.

Here are the parts fanned out.


A blurry one of me testing the joystick without the buttons on my computer before assembled it.


I found these on thingaverse. I printed them, but one of them snapped. I'm reprinting it with a higher fill density.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:723554

Raspberry Pi Arcade Stick Console



Crude markings for drilling.


The pieces drilled.

A trip to Ace hardware and I was ready to sand, paint, and assemble.

I thought I would test out some paints on the bottom piece which isn't very visible once assembled.

Here is the painted version without assembly.

Mostly assembled. I drilled holes for the joystick but after putting the hardware in I noticed the D-stick bumped one of the edges of the wall. instead I used some wood screws and re-centered stick.

Here we go hooked up. You can see the keyboard underneath. I'm going to add a wrist rest next.

After some advice from my long time friend I stumbled upon the joytokey software to get things working for games which don't support standard joysticks.

http://joytokey.net/en/

The joystick parts from amazon cost me 25 dollars and 10 dollars worth of search history sold to "Bing" for Amazon gift cards.

We had the wood left from a crib to outdoor couch project.

Then I spent about 10 dollars at Ace Hardware.

The risers I 3d printed from a giant orange spool of .175 I ordered for around $13 so I'll go ahead a say about .$.50 worth.

Total out of pocket $35ish. Not bad.

End of Carl.BurksBrand.com

After years of paying for a private domain name I realized I wasn't getting much value for my investment.  For several years searching for Carl Burks would take you to my site at carl.burksbrand.com. It will probably take me a few months to get back to the number one spot, but I am sure that I will. Carl Burks isn't that common of a name and there are other pages which utilize the keywords. For example IMDB also lists two different "Carl Burks" and actors seem to be serious about optimization. Have you ever noticed how rappers will drop their own name in a song? It is a serious marketing strategy.  It also reminds me of the Seinfeld episode "The Chicken Roaster" not to spoil it, but if you haven't seen it by now George does a leave behind to keep in touch. Getting to number one is pretty much about brand recognition.