The KeyStik Clip-on Joystick for Keyboards: LGR Oddware

[@atrocity3010]

I love all of LGR's videos but Oddware is definitely my favorite series. The fact that people came up with, designed, manufactured and sold stuff like this is endlessly fascinating.

[@TheGrobe]

It’s literally the only KZbin series I have kept up on every episode of for years running now. Stuff is great!

[@snesguy9176]

Yep oddware is what brought me to the channel years ago

[@riggles]

Even more fascinating how people came up with such intricate plastic gizmos without 3D printers to quickly test their designs.

[@shimona500]

It's crazy that injection molds that cost thousands exist for these things

[@beacheykeen]

And don’t forget, named them as well. Stick with no c is timeless

[@qmto]

5:55 How could one not notice this little joystick almost perfectly replicates that stock cartoon squeaky wheel sound effect you heard in everything back in the day?

[@Orpheusftw]

It is a _very_ familiar sound. 👌

[@defencebangladesh4068]

lol yeah

[@dankskilla4136]

Good to see your love of older things isnt just for paintball @qmto. Good to see you on here also make more videos please we miss you lol

[@erikhendrickson59]

*N64 Controller looks away in shame*

[@curinderwin]

Right on. It brings EXACTLY that type of sound to mind.

[@j.t.5178]

"To ensure precise operation of the stick, the nuts must rest on the keys." - LGR Words to always live by.

[@rickstorm4198]

🤣

[@CraigLillie]

A word of warning Mr. LGR, If you keep playing with those Nuts, you might go blind. Just saying. 😇

[@shostako1284]

🤣🤣

[@shawnstillman736]

*Your nuts lol

[@mikevaljus6771]

Dont play with them too hard, if you wish to have offspring

[@guy_chillin2406]

Only Clint can make a 30 second topic into a 23 minute video and keep us entertained the entire time.

[@malaert64]

“Complete overkill! Oh, that Hind is down!” Liquid Snake: _[Screaming in the distance]_ Such a cool add-on! Nice to see something like this done properly and effectively. Could definitely see this being a 3D print project, if someone was able to reverse engineer a schematic of it.

[@Dslite45]

"It's not over yet, Snake! It's not over yet"

[@mobiyus3282]

LIQUIIIIIIIIIIIIID!!!

[@FrederickGuese]

"He'll be a sliced like an onion on an infomercial"

[@subtledemisefox]

A Hind D!? Colonel! What's a Russian gunship doing here!?

[@ids1024]

I didn't expect much, at least until he showed the picture of the transparent one that looks like a better design than I might have expected. 3D printing could be practical, though it would be more interesting if less useful to see what it could be like with the best most premium construction possible.

[@Zed.TheReaper.McCormick]

I had that exact transparent version with the red, blue and yellow plastic innards. It was the first thing I ever ordered myself (via phone of course, didn't have internet yet) and it cost almost exactly the same for shipping as for the item itself. It lasted literally minutes before it broke.

[@pigmentpeddler5811]

tragic story

[@sl3o]

I'm honestly surprised at how well that thing worked out. I guess having a proper gimbal mechanism is the key ingredient here allowing the device to feel more like an arcade stick and less like those other awful num-pad stick/claw-on thingies.

[@ElaineLoyd]

I was surprised too.

[@DiamondDust132]

I was shocked too. I figured this was 100% gonna be a piece of crap.

[@Redhotsmasher]

Those clicky keyboard switches probably don't hurt either.

[@SirEpifire]

I'm assuming this feels loads better when properly tuned for keycap size and overall take-up. Little slop then too.

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

I could easily imagine it sucking less than the other things, but I wasn't expecting it to be actually good either. I'm glad he could finally cover such a thing.

[@7ktTube]

3:43 only seconds before this model shows up I was thinking to myself: Wait, I had a transparent joystick like this with some yellow plastic inside...and then it pops up extremely englarged on my TV! I had that exactly model back when I was a kid. I will look through my storage since I never throwed away stuff like this, if i find it I'll gladly send it to you! I remember the springs it had to re-center the joystick when releasing it beeing totally awesome. There were cheaper variants that didnt have this feature. They were quite popular in Sweden in the late 90''s

[@codecthelios]

PSA. You should always watch LGR with the subtitles on. It adds so much

[@higherground711]

I was just thinking that. I'm going to do this for other videos too. I watch subtitled anime cause in some cases I'd rather hear the Japanese voice actors and read the subtitles. The original voices, music, and sound effects is better and more fun and dramatic in many cases.

[@BackForwardPunch]

I was about to say, who does his subtitling? It's amazing!

[@starbucksmocha88]

Thanks for the tip, I've never used subtitles for LGR but I use them for a lot of other things. Immediately enjoying it... [little joystick noises] 😂

[@vladv5126]

I would give your comment a like but uh.. the like count is just nice as it is.

[@tenebra3227]

Watching LGR play Sensible Soccer (one of my favorite games growing up) is one of the best things I've seen in a long time. And it definitely made my day.

[@luter82]

and it's definitely supposed to be that fast

[@inuit2winit]

This reminds me of the steering wheel and joystick that clipped over your keyboard that you got with that Tonka game, I'd love to see a video on that!

[@uubrmanx]

Don't forget the Booster Boy and the Hyperboy!

[@mitchellgr33n4]

I was just about to comment this! I was born in ‘99 and played it on our VAIO VGC-RC210G with XP MCE

[@ianmiller6040]

I had one of those! Man, I haven't thought about that since I was six.

[@projektsmiley9256]

I remember the Star Wars one. Friend had it. Jealous as hell

[@ryanwollum6744]

Holy shit this just dredged a memory from the nether regions of my brain that I absolutely forgot existed, but that tonka game was my FAV as a little kid

[@therealchriscunningham]

This is absolutely how fast Sensi was, and why it was so incredible next to contemporaries like the isometric FIFAs.

[@hingeslevers]

It's always funny to see people's responses thinking there must be something wrong. It really is that fast, which is part of the fun.

[@rickybuhl3176]

Sat here chuckling - I was sure it wasn't just me thinking it was tough 'cos I was a kid..

[@myislander]

I had one of these that I bought at the Jacksonville hamfest for under $10 around 1996. It looked exactly like this one. Those two metal disks would stick to the keyboard, and the magnets would let you could take it off when you’re not using it. It gave a satisfying click when you placed the joystick over the keys. I recently found my old powercomputing Mac clone keyboard and those disks are still stuck to the keyboard.

[@MJFallout]

yeah, they really used the Duracell of adhesives for those disks, there's probably thousands still stuck to arrow-key-adjacent shards of old keyboards in various landfills around the world.

[@MoundN]

The doctor I used to go to when I was a child always had what looked like two cr2032 cell batteries on the left and right side of the up arrow key and i was ALWAYS asking myself what that is about but I was too introverted to ask her. Now I am convinced that that's simply a remainder of one of those stick attachments and she reused or bought a Keyboard from a seller that had used these.

[@printereagle]

I think it was the Jacksonville computer show at Morocco Shrine Auditorium not the hamfest we got them at. Mine was the Logistik variant, with the ergonomic finger divot on the top

[@tronicgo8873]

In my opinion ending the night with a lgr video is just so relaxing 😌 Seeing retro games with odd ware stuff it's just so chill

[@Jadae]

A night of "Joystick Fondling," paraphrased (2023).

[@Jjjipoasdp]

This is the kind of absolute insane stuff I watch this channel for.

[@mauricevandeursen7729]

A friend of mine had the clear one in the 90's on a 386, I didn't want to play games without it, since i was used to joysticks on my c64. It was attached by magnets and had some springs inside, worked flawlessly.

[@grumpyoldwizard]

Another calm and intriguing video to help get through these trying times.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

Trying times? What's happening now? Covid is a thing of the past.

[@rommix0]

@@FlyboyHelosim Yeah no kidding. I'm getting sick and tired of people who use "trying times" in a sentence when it ain't 2020 anymore.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

@@rommix0 I mean, it's different if he lives in Ukraine but I highly doubt it.

[@vadnegru]

@@FlyboyHelosim it sure is. But i disagree that war don't touch people in USA and Europe as well.

[@OldMan_PJ]

My friend had a version of this for the WASD keys back in the late-90's early 2000's. I could see it being useful for someone with a disability but always looked at it as a gimmick.

[@metfan4l]

Oh man I also remember having one of these things as a little german kid back in the 90s, haha. I don't think I used it for very long though before switching to some cheapo pc gamepad.

[@jannejohansson3383]

You must live Westside, cause no bits hasnt invented Eastside that time of world ;) Bad joke, don't kill me. My friend told me this, cause he want get rid of me, I believe.

[@jannejohansson3383]

Russians invent ak47 and that has used since for drilling, fishing, fixing cars, fixing leaking roof and so on, that's why everything looks in russia like it looks.

[@VinnytotheK]

Are you no longer German?

[@metfan4l]

@@VinnytotheK I used to be german. I still am but I used to, too.

[@humorss]

how well this thing performs really comes down to the switches

[@dalehadley3283]

That seamless transition to you reacting to what you said in post,made me laugh so hard! Awesome video as always Clint! Edit: Just finished the video. If I saw this in a store back then, I would have totally bought it! The idea and execution of it is so awesome,even today in 2022

[@yukikofujiwara2144]

"It's much faster than the cursor keys" So you're now using the cursor keys, but with extra travel distance via a wobbly plastic peripheral. Perfect. I couldn't figure out how those funky keys with the arrows on them were supposed to work.

[@philtkaswahl2124]

This is a nice sorta follow-up for that odd little numpad "joystick" attachment vid. Also, those green highlight keycaps for that mostly white keyboard gets more tempting the more I see it.

[@Takodate]

It's a Filco keyboard

[@rfwm]

LGR is straight up comfort content.

[@ClassicGameSessions]

This is a great example of a hardware novelty that we'd see back in the day lol there was a lot of it; it's always great entertainment checking out this stuff on your channel. The term "Oddware" sums it up nicely!

[@alexzapf6422]

Love your show. I enjoy how calm it is. Very informative. Love watching your videos while sipping on a good cup of coffee. It it’s raining outside a bit. Even better. Thank you for what you do.

[@SleezyPizza]

NGL I thought that letter said something other than "Hey Clint" that L and I are dangerously close lmao

[@dancoroian1]

As a first-generation immigrant growing up in an ESL household, my family and I had lots of linguistic inside jokes -- malapropisms, intentionally misusing false cognates, pronouncing words from one language with the intonation of the other, etc. "Constructions" (referring to instructions) was one of the classics, one of my dad's favorites always seeing lots of use around Christmas time what with all the present unwrapping. Thanks for taking me back 🙂

[@UberMan5000]

I wonder how hard this company lobbied against WASD?

[@juliusfucik4011]

The standardization of WASD was not happening for another 20 years after this thing came out 😂

[@DYNANiK]

lol

[@kevadu]

@@juliusfucik4011 Maybe it wasn't 'standard' but WASD was absolutely already a thing in the 90s.

[@artur6912]

@@kevadu Maybe as an option to reconfigure but hardly standard or common and most people used arrow keys on PC.

[@robertschnobert9090]

@@kevadu they were obviously very successful at lobbying against WASD! Without the KeyStik WASD would have been the standard much earlier. 🌈

[@chld9078]

I love the Sub Culture game in the background! It's a great game. I also love these oddware videos, I didn't know this kind of thing existed. Thanks man!

[@jonathanellis6097]

You could perhaps set the hight for the up and down keys to slightly higher, that way you might have less accident jumping in the fighting games. Overall I'm surprised how well it works, sometimes simple is best!

[@natebell4764]

seems like a no brainer compared to the other cheap version. add some housing, make it adjustable and make sure it sticks.

[@TheKillerStove]

18:28 LGR confirmed to prefer Hitboxes to Fightsticks. For real though, great vid. Always love to see the weird and unique stuff featured in this series.

[@Sentarry]

I love these oddware episodes. Also amuses me how Clint can make 20+ minute video on something that looks so simple. Bless ya Clint. Keep up the awesome content ☺️

[@LGR]

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed!

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

Only Clint could turn oddware into godware :D

[@devttyUSB0]

Just here to let you know that i did enjoy taking a look at this thing with you! Thanks!

[@LGR]

I'm glad to hear it!

[@Fairly-odd-kel]

Why is it that I want all these old gadgets more than new tech?! I think there was a bit more experimentation when computers and consoles were just becoming a thing

[@travis1240]

Fewer things had been tried... At the time, it was reasonable to believe that a $10 gizmo could improve your computing experience. Nobody would believe that today.

[@theghostofthomasjenkins9643]

it was the wild west and people were willing to try anything. it was wonderful.

[@chiefthunderhorse4430]

@@travis1240 no now some believe $300 in RGB lights will improve performance

[@WinterCedar]

Old gadgets are more interesting because everyone was trying new things. These days most electronics have pretty much settled on one standard or another.

[@matthewrease2376]

@@chiefthunderhorse4430 no one thinks that will improve their performance lol, they just enjoy looking at it.

[@mihaelkYeah]

Ski Free Yeti: *appears* Joel: "No don't eat me! Nooooo!!" Clint: "There he is, old friend!"

[@UnaccountedFour]

As someone who grew up in Portugal, can confirm. Had one of those I used to play Doom on my mom's old 486.

[@biboKralle]

Weekend breakfast with OJ, PB&J toast, coffee, scrambled egg? New oddware episode? Am I in heaven?? :O

[@retropuffer2986]

Pretty cool. Oddware items seem to have this mystical appeal I can't describe.

[@mistermoth2783]

LGRs superpower is having me and others captivated about a piece of plastic for 20 minutes.

[@MillywiggZ]

It’s a shame Y2K graphic design is trending now after the 80’s revival in the 2010’s. We’ve lept over the 90’s graphic design on full display with this box. Almost makes me want to PLAY IT LOUD!

[@RABBIDGamfan]

1997 was the best design year ever, says Yours Truly, a biased person who partly grew up in the 1990s

[@Schwarzorn]

Loud is good, but I still prefer playing with power. The mysticalness of the 80s for me, being born in '89, goes beyond nostalgia. It's something that was always just out of reach for me, even tho the remnants of it were everywhere: in the video rental stores, the radio, and the slightly older neighbor kid's "Nintendo"...

[@monad_tcp]

imagine if "modern" people see the inside of electronics, they are going to think its a bomb

[@DreamwalkerFilms]

Definitely a shame! I think late 90's high-end commercial is some of the most beautiful graphic design of any time period, and I don't mean that ironically. Big box software stores (like Frye's) before y2k were grounds for endless beauty. Some of the art deco revival stuff especially was just elegant. Which brings up an interesting point. If you revive a style that was already a revival of another style, what do you call it?

[@ndxdirectorscut]

@@Schwarzorn i have the exact same thing but for 2000s stuff, since i was born in late 06 I've grown to really like 80s and 90s stuff but 2000s stuff has a really soft spot in my heart

[@DavidEye01]

When I was a kid, my father was not happy with the lack of thumb grip on the NES controller so he drilled the middle of the D-pad and screwed in a small knob.. Basically recreating the 4-way Japanese joystick at 4:27 .. Still have it, works like a charm. And by the way he used the top knob of an old moka pot: how much more Italian can we get than this?

[@andreperez8961]

Cool dad.

[@ArachenoxTheLynx]

I remember these! I had a similar one back in the day when I was like 5. Man, trying to explain to the shop clerk I what I wanted back then was a challenge

[@rawr51919]

Poor clerk having to figure out what the hell you meant LOL

[@volvo09]

Clerk pulls out 4 real joysticks in a row before finally realizing "oh, those cheap plastic keyboard things we have hanging on the back wall! Is this what you want kid?"

[@andreasklindt7144]

That little thingy that is missing from your box to adjust the nuts had the same blue/oceangreen/turkis/azur/whatever-non-gray as the stick. I always left it in that tiny little compartment in the "garage" next to the big one for the keystik. Descent was my game of choice for this thing, I had so much fun with it! But every few months I had to glue that little gummy ball on top of the stick back on, it felt off very easily if you used it every day. Thank you very much for this road down oddware memory lane! :)

[@braien334]

I remember a similiar item also being available for nokia phones in the late 90's or early 00's, so you could really play snake seriously.

[@graealex]

Competitive snake playing - none of that casual crap.

[@higherground711]

If you or someone else remembers the name of it I'd like to check it out.

[@starbucksmocha88]

No way I never saw those! Ah snake on a Nokia, those were the days.

[@Jezee213]

This one is actually well thought out and sturdy! Better than all the others I have ever seen lol.

[@jackmcslay]

14:20 "Maybe it's just the mental difference of having, like, an actual little joystick to fondle down here" - Clint, 2022

[@anon_y_mousse]

That's actually a pretty cool device. Tunable and it doesn't require any real modification. I especially loved the touch with the self-deprecating humor from "editor-you" as you corrected yourself.

[@T0ghar]

LGR needs to try this with a Wooting Analog keyboard. This stick would be interesting with those analog keys.

[@nightmarerex2035]

he needs to try it wuth those old keyboards tgat have the two additinal arrows of UPRIGHT and UPLEFT or wait he cant without heavaly modifying it :/

[@rickstorm4198]

Best 200 i have spent.... Got the wooting 2 he

[@davep5698]

Oh wow yes! That would be interesting. I should get one of those too in general.

[@Cythil]

I was just thinking I need to get one of these to try out with my Wooting Analogue keyboard when I get it. ^_^

[@JanPospisilArt]

@@nightmarerex2035 I think those keyboards literally had the diagonal keys output the same signal as holding down the two corresponding direction keys. So it's a bit useless for this joystick, because it just does exactly that.

[@icecold1805]

7:01 ngl from the zoom out, which as far as I can remember never seen you use that as a transition ever on your channel, to seeing you in front of actually modern hardware, it feels so alien almost feels like someone else made a reaction video of your content for a second there.

[@hajkie]

When you correct yourself on instructions, i laughed way more than i should. :P

[@JenniferinIllinois]

I did as well. 🤣

[@maxon1672]

God bless you for flying out of KCGX lol. The story of Meigs Field is insane. Such a good video about a wacky and surprisingly cool piece of old tech, really appreciate you man. ✌️

[@Ranger_Kevin]

I remember seeing something like this in a shop window decades ago (I belive it was of the "transparent" variety) and always wanted one... but my dad conviced me that it wasn't that great and instead bought me a real joystick.

[@rawr51919]

Works in a pinch though, I can see the novelty now

[@Ranger_Kevin]

@@rawr51919 In hindsigth, I think I was more intrigued by it because it was transparent, and you could see how it worked. I liked transparent mechanical gadgets ^^

[@Thinkofsomethingnew]

@@Ranger_Kevin who doesn't

[@lolocaust4967]

Wow, love your keyboard. Those green caps are a nice shade of green.

[@kjetilv]

Fun to see those things again. I had the LogiStik version, and remember how cool it was to try it on Quake and Wolf 3D. It was never a good solution though, I remember it was horribly prone to just falling off the keybard

[@fridaycaliforniaa236]

I had one of these, back in the day, and I have to admit, for an odd thingy it was one of the most well thougt. Cheap and efficient, for what it is. Neat idea 🙂

[@kevinkergen6673]

Remember having one of these 20 years ago. Best use was for Sydney 2000, where you basically just had to smash the left/right or up/down Buttons which was kind of cheating with this thing

[@s.o.4339]

3:45 ... I had it. 3000 years ago. Tried around a while and it actually worked pretty good for some older games. Broke pretty fast, though. It was put on the keyboard with magnets who were glued on it. For every game with fast reaction time, you ripped it of the keys and lost.

[@joeltyler3427]

I love the mid edit call out 7:00 lol

[@loszhor]

I was expecting it not to work. Very interesting, thanks for uploading.

[@itsaPIXELthing]

David is such a cool dude ;) And yeah, I'm also from Portugal and I can confirm that this item was all over the place. A couple of friends had this back in the day, but I never really enjoyed messing around with it.

[@plum_bit]

I love the soft jazz in the background, it really sets the perfect mood for these kind of videos, I love it

[@areola_ayatollah]

“This is the KEY to JOY in my life”. God tier pun.

[@garylshawiii483]

Good stuff man! Just found your channel love it great memories interesting subjects

[@LGR]

Thank you!

[@ScottLahteine]

Nice! I was thinking of making something just like that as a 3D printable object. Of course, others have had the same idea.

[@yifuwang2275]

> As seen on TV I would LOVE to see the ad

[@Mik_lackofbits]

I had a similar thing for the first Playstation pad (the only digital one), at first it was weird but it grew on me eventually. Same for a similar accessory on Gameboy Color. And yep, Sensible Soccer is THAT fast, and that's why it is so fun :)

[@renakunisaki]

I remember seeing a PC gamepad with this feature. The D-pad had a spot in the middle to screw in a joystick.

[@LiquidyTea]

Hey, I used to have that exact model back in the 90s. Got it along with my first (used) PC. I thought the way it clipped onto your keyboard via magnets was pretty neat. I suppose you could try and restore it by buying two magnetic discs at like a craft store or something and glueing it to the keyboard. Then the little storage box would have more purpose!

[@tribaltroll]

I was completely expecting this thing to be a hot mess. Pleasantly surprised to see how well it worked.

[@zephaniahgreenwell8151]

Watching this makes me think you should cover the Fisher-Price Play and Learn keyboard. It goes over a standard keyboard but by the time it came out most keyboards were smaller and thinner and it was difficult to get it to work.

[@artoodiitoo]

"yeah, make sure your nuts are always on the keys." That played with Duke Nukem voice in my head

[@verstraetenandre]

I don't understand how you managed to finish this video, me, like 28 days later, i'd be like "Now, skate or die! And F22 raptor is next!"

[@Plasmafox]

I remember having a peripheral like that- for the gameboy, similarly translating a stick into the d-pad.

[@tomleech9753]

The command line action to reconfigure the keyboard delay and repeat rate in DOS is MODE CON Like "MODE CON: RATE=32 DELAY=1" In case anyone was wondering and never used that weird command. :)

[@icurnvs776]

I know nobody did but I want to say thank you for sharing that information! I like playing old games and if I ever need this, I’ll probably remember what the line is because of what you posted. :)

[@mitschiewaldmann9450]

So for the last couple of years I have really enjoyed your videos ! Thanks 😊

[@Tafkadasoh3798]

I totally had forgotten this! I had one as a juvenile, living in Germany. I remember that I was really keen on this when I saw it in an advertisement, but when I had one, I was a bit disappointed, because it didn‘t feel like a real joystick, due to the keyboard constraints. And I think I had those magnets glued on my keyboard way longer than I actually used the KeyStik. 😄 Funny to see you playing Sensible Soccer on DOS for the first time. I don‘t know the Amiga version, but yeah, this game was fast as hell! I had played only Fifa before, and then this madness! Do you know if this was a bug of the DOS version, and Amiga version had a reasonable speed? Funny thing: In youth, you had so much time to play these games, so after a while, the speed madness of Sensible wasn‘t an issue anymore, and I could score quite well against computer AI and friends. Our brains are so wonderful 😆

[@azraelle6232]

Just love that whenever Clint has to say "nuts" in this video, he puts a little stank on it so you know what he really means. :)

[@LGR]

_nnnnNUTS_

[@marioe.4400]

This would've been "interesting" for 2D fighting games on consoles: During the PS1/Saturn era, many games released after '96 and '97 did not support the analog stick from the 3D Control Pad (the one bundled with NiGHTS) and Dual Analogue (before DualShock) controllers, so when the Dreamcast came about, we got spoiled, making up for many-a-years of having to either play the original arcade versions or get very dubious 3rd party sticks, which were more readily available depending on where you lived. Then, the Analogueness Monster peeped its head again, and as it did that, several PS2 games ended up NOT allowing the feature, such was the fear!

[@COBOL]

Idk man, the Saturn Controller (2nd gen in US) was and still is the best controller ever for fighting games. And there was also official arcade sticks by Sega for Saturn and by Namco for the Playstation. The Analougue sticks was never a good choice for fighting games (except Smash).

[@wintermute8315]

Fighting games are perfect for the d-pad anyway.

[@djviperx]

I know I'm late to the party, but seeing how it actuates the keys makes me wonder that it will really work wonders with a modern keyboard that has analog keys

[@TFHC_cc]

I had one, exactly like that :) It was... fun?! 🤔 A bit. Although, I had to add padding to the adjustment pins and glue the the magnets to the keyboard! What a trip back :) And yes, I'm from Portugal 😆

[@ranke]

when I saw LHX I was thrown back to my childhood! cool! thanks Clint for all your videos on both channels.

[@sroJumper]

had the exact same one as a kid :'D damn almost never used it, the holder for magnets where on the keyboard for ages

[@michaelwitt188]

the constructions edit is the finest piece of edit work I've seen in years.

[@MaggieDanger]

Ah, good ol' German Engineering. I kinda miss working there - for any given IT task you could typically hire mechanical engineers, software engineers or even electrical engineers and they'd all get you sorted. 100% to your spec... without involving any OTHER kinds of engineering, as a matter of pride. Clearly this project went to some mechanical engineers, and it sounds like they worked it out pretty solidly ^^. Seriously tho, it's kinda awesome and bonkers to see some of those engineers in action... say you want someone to design a calculator to use with your computer. Ask a software engineer, you get a computer program for that computer; ask the electrical engineer and they'll make an old fashioned solar-powered calculator using 100% hand calculated TTL logic, and if you were to ask the mechanical engineer, they'll make you a nice, minimalist number pad with ten glorious typewriter digit keys to satisfyingly punch in your numbers; a cogwheel counter reminds you of the result of the last calculation, and a crank to the side replaces your "add" button. Couldn't be simpler to use, just key in a number and one turn of that crank will add that to the last result and update the counter. Turn again to add again - you can repeat that as many times as you like, allowing you to multiply and add with correct operator precedence intuitively. Turn the crank the other way to subtract. To divide, do long division - the 700 page manual explains that in great detail in case you forgot, along with half an advanced linear algebra college course in case you need to calculate trigonometric functions. That's way more stuff than the puny solar powered desk calculator the electrical engineer came up with, without needing a single Coulomb of charge and without any cruddy software bollocks. And in the end, isn't that all that really matters? (... I'm not actually joking about that, I used to work at a German engineering office as a SWE together with an extremely talented EE... and one of our friends was a physicist who built one of those cranky monstrosities and used it in every single uni exam he had, which... fair play to acing his statistics exam with a calculator that could only do addition, tbqh; our boss (another physicist turned SWE) also never bothered to buy a calculator, opting for his trusty abacus instead, completely confusing customers during planning meetings, most of which were MDs who had never even seen an abacus and kept staring at him in fascination - nor had they seen command lines or TTL logic diagrams for that matter, but that caused more of a scared/panic reaction.) German Engineering is WIIILD, duuuude!

[@starbucksmocha88]

Cool story, thanks for sharing! That crank calculator sounds awesome 😎

[@MaggieDanger]

@@starbucksmocha88 hah, happy to hear that ^^ - and yeah they are hella cool. I don't know about any portable ones right now, but if you found yourself in the area, my uni's comp sci campus has a larger one in their computing museum - it's at the Willhelm-Schickard Institute - the namesake designed a larger mechanical calculator - not sure this one was cranked tho, but it is way older ^^

[@starbucksmocha88]

@@MaggieDanger cool, something to add to my bucket list when I can finally do some traveling (I'm in Canada so not exactly close by :P) I love learning about interesting stuff like this 😁

[@MaggieDanger]

@@starbucksmocha88 haha, me too! Also this might've been one of the VERY rare occasions that anyone has ever heard me say a good word about where I'm from, haha xD. BTW, the Wiki article is a pretty solid list of different models and where you might find more info about them if you want to know how they work internally - even gives a shoutout to the namesake of our CS institute, which honestly surprised me but did make me a bit happy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_calculator Enjoy!! 😍

[@cesarvasquez9572]

I had one of these (still have it around somewhere). The two metal disks were supposed to be attached to the keyboard "permanently" so you could take the joystick on and off by laying it on there and having the magnets attach to the metal. It's actually a pretty creative solution to a barely existent problem. It felt a bit funky but always worked. The only reason I ended up not using it much is that there weren't that many games that only played via keyboard arrows so attaching a joystick was always a better option. Mine was called the "Maverick Cursor Stick" or something like that.

[@predcon1]

I would have loved to have had this on Amiga or something, a lot of games had combination JS+KB controls and it was super awkward to hold a Commander steady with one hand and also try and reach my stubby 5 y/o arms out to reach the far side of the KB

[@Fr0stM00n]

I just found my keystik (possible different brand… purchased mine at Compusa many years ago!) a couple days ago in my storage room! Interesting idea using double stick tape since the magnetic disc would always let go when I tried playing on my while connected to my P2 400’s Gateway keyboard! I recall owning another brand but never used it. Thanks for the awesome video! Brought be great memories

[@smartperson1]

Just a thought: what if you made the white "nuts" a little longer so that they don't just touch the keys, but rather almost depress the keys so they're just a nudge away from clicking? That could make the stick really responsive. Much more sensitive than a keyboard normally could be.

[@LGR]

There's not really much leeway like that on this mechanical board and the actuation force required to activate each switch. The force needed here is really low. When I adjusted the nuts that far down all I got was unwanted key presses, even more than what you saw in the video.

[@Perberos]

I can't believe I survived the '80 and '90 pc gaming without this thing. Now i'm questioning my existence *cries*

[@lasskinn474]

Sensible soccer: Everyone: is this supposed to be this fast?

[@icoborg]

it was way faster on pc, and the effect you could apply to the ball was bigger..

[@Omniblade_Gaming]

You know what I love about this channel. Its genuine and you talk shop, but the big challenge would be if you can play on a modern keyboard

[@bradswim]

I remember having an old Tonka steering wheel that worked using the same concept. As a kid, I loved the darn thing.

[@TheBlueArcher]

I do remember seeing those blerb videos so glad you got to track one down and show us the real thing.

[@Mainyehc]

That thing is OOOOLD. You can tell from the 7-digit phone number, we’ve had 9-digit ones for quite a while now. And I do recall a friend of mine having one of these here (in Portugal, no less), and even though I’m not sure whether it was this exact same model, the magnetic attachment system was the same.

[@fidelrivera2887]

7:00 Great bit of editing here! 👌 Its voice over so you could have just cut it out or re-do the take and prolly 80% of people would not even have noticed the mistake but you left in and were able to laugh at your past self and that's why you are so damn cool man. Good content can be ruined by bad editing but you always bring the goods with your videos. Thanks!

[@dfkman]

Reminds me of the pre fightstick days where people would duct tape a cardboard joystick to their numpad

[@quietusplus1221]

3:40 Major nostalgia kicked in when you showed that picture. I KNEW I had something similar, and that's the exact model.

[@rickstorm4198]

"That said, this feels slightly more natural, having a little joystick down here to fondle to feel a little better" -LMG Can't disagree 😁

[@OriginalPiMan]

I prefer a larger joystick to fondle.

[@sam08g16]

I always enjoy taking a look at anything with you

[@Zucadragon]

When you showed the note, for a moment, I forgot your name was Clint, and it looked like he was saying something very different! Also, what if you used something like that with a keyboard (And it fits ofcourse) that has like, multiple layers of key response, so like, that would small movements mean something as well, sounds like it could be really awesome with one of those.

[@Remix916]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought the same thing when seeing the name. I was like, damn!! Just like that?!

[@Zucadragon]

@@Remix916 Hahaaaaa, great minds think alike! You and I are like brothers!

[@ll0StrYkeR0ll]

Hands down my Favorite KZbin channel. Thank you Clint.