Author: admin

  • Lego Sega Mega Drive Control Pad

    This looks fun. It’s Lego – you can’t plug it in and use it on a console – and there seems to be a Sonic The Hedgehog variation. Will there be any more variations? Time will tell.

    Lego refers to it as 40769 SEGA Genesis Controller , and it has 260 pieces.

    The image above is from the official LEGO website.

    The front cover pops out to reveal a Sonic scene:

    The price remains to be seen. Being LEGO, it will most likely be quite expensive.

    It is not available yet at the time of writing (3rd September 2025), but hopefully it will be available soon.

    I don’t think I will be buying it, but it does look cool, though.

  • New, official, coloured Atari CX40-style joysticks

    Atari are releasing various Pac-Man themed items, for sale to the general public on pre-order this Wednesday (that is to say, the 23rd July, 2025).

    You can get one of these lovely-looking joysticks, and also you can get a bundle of a yellow 7800 console (the new version – it’s not just an emulator thing, it’s fairly decent) with a yellow joystick and the new Pacman game.

    The new Pacman game is due to have (by the way, I’m not gonna bother with affiliate links, for now. I don’t want to monetise my online life that way, partly because life has taught me that the less I try to make money, the more I make. But don’t get me started on a rant on how ridiculous life is) a brand new version of Pac-Man, alongside a version of the older game (a 7800 version I suppose).

    If you have more money than you need, you could do worse than by picking up some of this stuff. I haven’t tried any of this new wave of products myself, so I don’t know for sure, but it seems to be made with high production values.

    Enjoy the summer 2025 and beyond, y’all.

  • The XPro5K – a new version of the Competition Pro 5000

    I know that this is a museum, but for now I am focusing on news – why not? Surely a museum needs to incorporate new stuff, in a sense? Or maybe that’s absolutely, completely incorrect?

    But this is news about a retro thing. The Competition Pro 5000 was a lovely black and red joystick. On BlueSky you can find details of a replication of the Competition Pro 5000, a work in progress, done by someone who is a 3D printing specialist.

    You can see pictures and find more details on their BlueSky page, using the following link:

    Nebula-Design (@nebuladesign.bsky.social) — Bluesky

    Now, I have just started this website – I have used WordPress in the past, it was a grind. But this time, it has been a breeze. One of the big problems with (in my experience) being a WordPress (or any other product designed to help you build up a website) beginner is that when you make changes in the wrong way or rather in the way that you weren’t “supposed to” do them, then the changes you make can make a big mess of what is really supposed to be simple.

    So that’s basically a part of the process of learning to do it. It’s easy when you know how, but to get to that stage takes a modicum of effort. Same as pro soccer players – the reason they make it look easy is because they’ve spent years preparing. I’m not saying that as a gatekeeper-y boast, but the opposite if anything, to demystify it.

    To clarify how I’m trying to demystify the website creation process, if anyone reading this does indeed find it baffling and wouldn’t know where to start (by the way the answer to that is to ask someone or ask a search engine or ask an AI assistant), then I’m trying to demystify it by saying that yes it is easy and simple once you’ve gone through the work where you get your head round the stuff that has to be done to get to the point where it’s easy and simple – this is not something you can sit down and do in one evening or even in one month.

    And yes, I know this is a rather basic website – I don’t claim otherwise. If you’re reading what I write and saying “what a basic level of skill this Retro Joystick Museum guy has”, then I’d say: the whole of computer science is now far too big for any one person to comprehend or be expert in even a tenth of it. I am unashamed in admitting when and where and how I have gaps in my knowledge – in fact I am proud, because the truth is that unless you approach life with a learner’s attitude, you’ll never grow.

    Anyway this is a good platform for my 1.19am ramblings – I do tend to go on other places such as Reddit and end up saying outrageous things that offend people. I apologise.

  • German lovely photo of a Competition Pro

    22nd June 2025

    Browsing BlueSky, the alternative to X/Twitter (and it’s important to specify that X is actually Twitter because there are indeed other things which are already called X in the computer world – in my opinion it’s important, anyway. But really I think it’s important because otherwise you might read it and go, “what is X?”), I stumbled across a lovely photograph, published on the 13th of this month.

    The site is in German and I shall provide a link https://norberteder.photography/52-wochen-foto-challenge-2025/

    Once you’re there, hold Ctrl and tap the “F” key, then release Ctrl, then type in “Zeitlos” (without the quote marks), and it should hopefully appear on your screen instantly, although you might have to scroll down a tad.

    I might send the guy a message and ask if I can reprint his photo on here.

    For now, that’s all, I suppose,

    Over and out (I think they used to say that on two way radios. I don’t know why, but it would be easy to search online to find out).

    Bill

  • A new site for Retro Joysticks

    Hello and welcome. My name is Bill. I am here to – over the next few millenia (who am I kidding, I probably have only a few decades left on this planet at the very most) – over the next few years I might (or might not) build up some content on this website.

    It’s gonna be about joysticks, retro ones. But what is retro? Let’s say, right off the bat, anything from 2005 or earlier.

    For now, if you have anything to say, you can find me on BlueSky at ‪@retrojoystick.bsky.social‬

    20/6/2025