{"id":36,"date":"2008-02-17T22:26:10","date_gmt":"2008-02-17T12:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christopherowen.id.au\/blog\/2008\/02\/17\/joy-from-a-stick\/"},"modified":"2008-02-17T22:26:10","modified_gmt":"2008-02-17T12:26:10","slug":"joy-from-a-stick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/2008\/02\/17\/joy-from-a-stick\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy from a stick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recent MSN article on the <a href=\"http:\/\/tech.uk.msn.com\/features\/article.aspx?cp-documentid=7488178\">downfall of the joystick<\/a> (via <a href=\"http:\/\/games.slashdot.org\/games\/08\/02\/14\/1253223.shtml\">Slashdot Games<\/a>) stirred up memories of my most favourite incarnations of this venerable gaming peripheral: Multicoin Amusement&#8217;s Starcursor series.<\/p>\n<div>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/christopherowen.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/starcursor.jpg\" alt=\"Advertisement with a Koala holding a Starcursor\" title=\"starcursor\" width=\"615\" height=\"833\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-142\" srcset=\"https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/starcursor.jpg 615w, https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/starcursor-221x300.jpg 221w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<p>I actually had the second and less bulkier version of this Australian designed and made gem, the Starblazer, which served me well for years until a not-so-close friend from high school broke it with some harsh play. I was actually heart-broken when that stick bit the dust and I&#8217;m even more saddened that I can&#8217;t seem to find any pictures of it to show you.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily one of my other mates (hi Niki!) wanted to sell his original Starcursor (as pictured above) and I leaped at the opportunity. That stick still goes strong today, around twelve years later, whenever I get the nostalgic urge to drag my still functioning Amiga 1200 out of the cupboard for a few rounds of The Chaos Engine. As you might guess from the picture, and the fact that it appears to survive a ferocious Koala mauling, that stick can actually take quite a pounding. But for all its harsh angles and generous proportions it was still a joy to use; great micro-switch responsiveness and well-placed two function fire buttons.<\/p>\n<p>Those were the days huh?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent MSN article on the downfall of the joystick (via Slashdot Games) stirred up memories of my most favourite incarnations of this venerable gaming peripheral: Multicoin Amusement&#8217;s Starcursor series. I actually had the second and less bulkier version of this Australian designed and made gem, the Starblazer, which served me well for years until [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[30,33,59,74],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming","category-hardware","tag-amiga","tag-australia","tag-joystick","tag-starcursor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christopherowen.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}