IT LIVES!
I have one stick and set of buttons fully wired. Well almost fully wired. The coin drop button isn’t 100% yet, but I think I have that traced back to a poor solder. It shouldn’t be too much trouble to fix. The second stick is sitting on the workbench ready to be hooked up, so that should be ready soon too. The sticks are Ultimarc Ultrasticks. They are analog sticks with a software setting for 4 and 8 way modes. I was a little concerned, since they were analog, that they might not be accurate enough for fighting games. Minutes after hooking up all the buttons and making sure they were all mapped properly, I was able to blast through half the roster in Super Street Fighter 2. When I reached an opponent I wasn’t able to beat, it was due to my own rusty Street Fighter skills and not the controller. The tension on the spring is a little looser than I would like by default, so I might go pick up a stiffer spring, but other than that it performs extremely well. I have it hooked up to the laptop for testing, but eventually a the cabinet will be home to a small pc and modest sized HDTV will act as the display. Is it an arcade accurate gaming experience? No, not really. You also don’t need to get tokens from a greasy haired thug and wonder what that sticky stuff is on the light punch button. Captain Joystick is part of a more civilized home arcade experience.