Today in Tedium: Of the year’s many Super Bowl ads, perhaps the most compelling and interesting—and according to a post-game study , effective—was an ad Microsoft created to highlight a game controller . The Xbox Adaptive Controller, with its massive action buttons and dozens of accessories, is the kind of device that perhaps won’t sell a lot of units, but is much more important as a statement piece—a statement that the company wants to ensure everyone who wants to play its games can do so, and that it was willing to take steps to encourage such accessibility. Gamers, of course, are very particular about their controllers—as they should be, because they spend hours with them, whether at an arcade, on the go, or at home in front of a 4K TV set or old CRT—and are willing to look far and wide for one that best suits their needs. In that spirit, today’s Tedium ponders game controllers, and highlights a pal of mine who has found himself in the joystick business in recent months. — Ernie @ Tedium

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The year that the joystick, a key method of controlling a video game, was first patented . Obviously, video games didn’t exist back then, so its use case was in aviation, as a part of a remote control aviation system. To test the device, engineer Carlos B. Mirick effectively invented a primitive drone-like device–a radio-controlled device on wheels he called the “electric dog.”

The N64 controller, perhaps one of the most controversial controllers of all time, helped to popularize the thumbstick. (Evan Amos/Wikimedia Commons)

Benj Edwards, a tech historian turned retro entreprenur. (Handout photos)

How a computing historian found himself running a joystick business

Technology, so often, is a game of mass manufacturing—of products that are produced at a certain scale, that don’t really shine or reach an ideal price/performance ratio unless they’re made in the tens of thousands. Certainly joysticks, like many video game items, have traditionally fit into this mold.

But retro gaming, with its willing body of enthusiasts who are looking for ways to perfect their nostalgia experience—and willing to pay premium prices along the way—are perhaps the most prominent exception to this rule. And that creates opportunities to take a more, shall we say, DIY approach.

Benj Edwards, a tech journalist and historian who has run his Vintage Computing and Gaming website for nearly 15 years, has recently found himself in the joystick business, building out an array of joysticks for platforms common and obscure—mostly by hand. He notes that BX Foundry comes at a time when retro gaming is full of people looking for an upgrade.

“There is a rather large enthusiast community of retrogamers out there right now, and they are used to paying (relatively) high amounts for rare games or special limited-run accessories,” Edwards told me in an email interview. “So boutique handcrafted joysticks fit into this quite well—especially when the joysticks turn out to be amazingly good and deliver an experience for older systems that you can’t get out of any mass-produced retail product.”

Edwards, having written stories about the invention of the first video game cartridge, why software piracy is a necessity for preservation, and the challenge of saving the history of the early online service Prodigy, knows his tech history, and he brings that knowledge to his work in joysticks.

A sample of some of Edwards’ organic, minimalist controllers.

He describes his approach to his joysticks as “organic and minimalist”—and moving against the prevailing trend among arcade controllers for home consoles of being akin to literal replicas of what’s usually found in arcade cases. His strategy is, effectively, to keep it simple—he develops the cases from off-the-shelf plastic boxes, uses genuine arcade sticks and controllers, generally uses a drill press to cut the holes, and relies on the placement of his own hands to figure out the general design for a given controller.

“Some people who make home arcade sticks get obsessed with plotting out precise positions for all the buttons, even drawing them up in a computer CAD program first,” he explains. “I just use a pencil and a ruler if I need to plan anything out.”

This strategy has proven effective for his lineup of joysticks, which includes systems largely of a particular vintage, including the Atari 800 and the NES. (Lots of room for offbeat stuff, however; my personal favorite controller he makes is the BX-10 Cyclops, which is literally described on the website as “a single button to make a dramatic statement.”)

The SNES-focused BX-110, which had a higher-capacity production cycle.

Of course, keeping it simple has its limits. It means that scaling up production can be a challenge, especially in the case of the BX-110, a joystick for the Super NES that he’s currently ramping up production for. Things that you might not think about as a consumer, such as the color of the buttons or the number of holes on a box, suddenly become significant issues.

“I had lot of interest, but if I tried to build 100 of them myself, it would take forever and not be practical,” he explained. (Full disclosure: I’m currently waiting on a BX-110, and I’m patiently counting down the days.)

In the past, I’ve wanted to interview folks trying to build businesses around building and shipping things about their challenges with logistics. (I’m particularly interested in startups trying to ship alcohol across state lines for home delivery purposes, for what it’s worth, due to the knotty legal issues that come with that. If anyone you know is running a business like that, get in touch.)

BX Foundry is the closest I’ve gotten to that, and the way Benj talks about it highlights just how hard this stuff can be for newbies, how it sets parameters (“the up-front investment costs of custom injection-molded cases is astronomical, and I can’t afford that right now”) and highlights, unfortunately, the way the world works these days.

“I’ll tell you the challenge that is most depressing,” he notes, by way of example. “American factories and companies are glacially slow and inefficient, while Chinese manufacturers are lightning fast, highly skilled, and fall all over themselves trying to help you in any way you could possibly need.”

He says that the Super NES joysticks, high in demand, are being held up by one thing, though he’s working it out. Even with the frustrations, though, he sees the bright side here.

“I’ve learned a ton about manufacturing along the way, though, so it has been a fascinating and gratifying experience,” he says.