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| SV-129 |
On January 6, in RCR podcast Episode #42, Carrington Vanston (@carrington) recommended the QuickJoy Foot Pedal SV-129 as a Retro Computing Gift Idea. He found one over in the U.K. at 8 Bit Heaven Retro Gaming.
Carrington has a long history of researching and reviewing game controllers for both quality and playability, so I trust his opinion. The quality of the micro-switches and configuration flexibility were two strengths cited on the SV-129.
For me, I was looking for alternatives to traditional GUI mouse input in Wheels (GEOS 4.4) on the Commodore 128. I live in San Francisco, and my physical space is extremely limited. I simply can not come up with a Man-Cave arrangement that allows room for a 1351 mouse. Instead, I use a Suncom ICONtroller, but its button is starting to become really flaky. To replace it with another used unit would probably run $40 + shipping, but I really like the tactile quality of micro-switches.
The QuickJoy Foot Pedal SV-129 is a digital joystick for various
systems. This foot pedal can take over 3 functions of a joystick. Each
pedal on the controller is micro-switched. Two footrests can be folded under.
How It Works
The foot pedal has two cables coming out of the back of it. One of the
cables connects to the joystick port on the computer and the other is
for plugging your joystick into. There is a bank of five switches that
let you select which function of the joystick the individual pedals take
over (up, down, left, right or fire). For example, if you game uses
forward and backwards for accelerate and brake and the fire but to
change gear you can set the switches to allow one pedal for accelerate,
one pedal for brake and one for changing gear. Just like driving a car.
You would then just use the joystick to steer left and right. Each pedal
can be assigned any of the joysticks functions so you can set them up
how it would suit you the best. You can assign none, one, two or all of
the pedals. So again you could use the joystick for movement but assign
one of the pedals to the fire button for kicking a ball in a football
game.
Compatible with Commodore 64/128, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Atari 2600,
Amstrad CPC, Sinclair Spectrum (requires interface), plus many others.
Rather than order from the U.K., I found a source in Florida on eBay that has (>10) more than ten NOS units for sale and offers free shipping. They say that the boxes have been
sitting in a warehouses for over 25 years so they are not mint, but
the controller is new and has never been used before. I took a chance and ordered one for myself and I really like it. I would recommend this seller to others as well if you are interested.
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