joust optical joysticks

djw90

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How many Joust's Came with optical joysticks. I just started working on my 2 joust's. I noticed something looked weird. Joysticks on one looks alot bigger than the other, talked to Dokert and found out they are factory optical Joysticks.

Machine should be running tomorrow, I hope:D

How rare are these sticks, How do the compare to regular Joust Sticks?
 
Here are some pictures of the optical Joust panel. The Sticks are way taller than a normal joust!! The control panel overlay part number is different, and text is in yellow not white like a regular joust panel. Now I think the yellow Tmold might be original, it matchs the yellow on the cpo parts number??
jousto3.jpg


joust02.jpg


jousto4.jpg
 
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What's the S.N. / date stamp difference between the two cabinets?

I'd guess (an uneducated one, that is) that the optical ones may have been at the very beginning or very end of the production run.
 
What's the S.N. / date stamp difference between the two cabinets?

I'd guess (an uneducated one, that is) that the optical ones may have been at the very beginning or very end of the production run.

My guess would be that they came at the end of the production run, since Joust used the same controls as Defender and Stargate which came out before Joust.

The Opticals also appear to use the same centering spider as Sinistar joysticks.
 
My understanding is that the optical sticks came first. Then Williams came to their senses, and realized how stupid it was to use a $200 joystick on a game that only goes left/right.

Edward
 
My understanding is that the optical sticks came first. Then Williams came to their senses, and realized how stupid it was to use a $200 joystick on a game that only goes left/right.

Edward

That sounds prety accurate to me. Seems like a good example of over-complication!
 
If you look at the stock number on the CPO, the optical stick one has a -1 after the 3006, which would make me think it's a revision of the other one (why would you put a -1 on the first one, but no number on a revision?)
 
Maybe overstock of optical sticks or premature failure of leaf switches with all the left/right action in the game?

but if its overstock what else uses a 2-way optical stick?

Out of the hundereds of Joust's listed on VAPS, Yellowdog is the only one listed with optical sticks. WOW!! I was talking to him about this last night. He thinks these might have been at the end of production.

This is what Klov says:

Early production Joust cabinets came with optical joysticks instead of leaf joysticks and thus had a larger joystick opening in the control panel. The leaf joysticks were substituted later as a cost-saving measure.

These cabinets can also play Robotron (and vice-versa) with a swap of the program ROMs, the sound ROM, and minor wiring harness modifications (for the extra joystick inputs required by Robotron). The control panel joystick openings will have to be bored out to accept the 8-way sticks of Robotron if the cabinet has the two-way leaf joysticks. Joust control panels with Opto-joysticks have larger openings and will readily accept 8-way joysticks.
 
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The part number difference is for the round holes (for the optical sticks) vs the oval holes for the mechanical joysticks. My optical Joust was a rebuild so the serial numbers don't mean anything. I have seen 2 optical Jousts on Ebay total. There is one on there now. It has the Willis CPO.

To add further speculation to the fire, all of the flyers at ArcadeFlyers show mechanical Jousts. You would think if they were originally going with optical sticks in the beginning of the run, the flyers would show them as they were typically produced using early run cabinets.

In a totally unrelated sidenote, I would like to apologize to Jan Hendricks for whatever jackass put the Wikipedia entry together. I think SHE would be p*ssed at being called HE and HIM.

ken

PS: If anybody has a dedicated Joust with optical stick, please post the serial number. We can try to correlate that number with early vs late production and put this debate to bed for a while. Thanks.
 
The part number difference is for the round holes (for the optical sticks) vs the oval holes for the mechanical joysticks. My optical Joust was a rebuild so the serial numbers don't mean anything. I have seen 2 optical Jousts on Ebay total. There is one on there now. It has the Willis CPO.

To add further speculation to the fire, all of the flyers at ArcadeFlyers show mechanical Jousts. You would think if they were originally going with optical sticks in the beginning of the run, the flyers would show them as they were typically produced using early run cabinets.

In a totally unrelated sidenote, I would like to apologize to Jan Hendricks for whatever jackass put the Wikipedia entry together. I think SHE would be p*ssed at being called HE and HIM.

ken

PS: If anybody has a dedicated Joust with optical stick, please post the serial number. We can try to correlate that number with early vs late production and put this debate to bed for a while. Thanks.

I will look again for a serial number. Does Joust have different color rom chip sets that would indicate age?
 
but if its overstock what else uses a 2-way optical stick?

MotoraceUSA.

1181242138214.jpg


Check the joystick closely in the above picture.

I will look again for a serial number. Does Joust have different color rom chip sets that would indicate age?

There were 4 sets of Joust ROMS. The following chart shows the ROMS in order of release.

From the MAME documentation:

There are at least 4 different ROM sets for Joust (most likely more
since there is a gap in the production numbering for another set). The
"A" or "B" is the suffix to the ROM number printed on the sticker
labels. The ROM at position F4, for example, should either say "ROM 1A"
or "ROM 1B" somewhere on it. You can tell by checking the checksums
that a lot of the ROMs are identical but each set has (at least) several
ROMs which are unique.

Code:
[FONT=Courier New]|<---------------Information from sticker--------------->| |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]        | White/Red   |Solid Green | Solid Red  | Wht/Grn |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]ROM| Brd | "A" 2532    | "B" 2732   | "A" 2532   | "B" 2732|[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]# | Loc | joust.wr#   | joust.sg#  | joust.sr#  |joust.wg#|[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]---+-----+-------------+------------+------------+---------+[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]01 | F4  | 16-30060-1  | 16-3006-13 | 16-3006-28 | 3006-52 |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]02 | C4  | 16-30060-2  | 16-3006-14 | 16-3006-29 | 3006-53 |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]03 | A4  | 16-30060-3  | 16-3006-15 | 16-3006-30 | 3006-54 |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]04 | F5  | 16-30060-4  | 16-3006-16 | 16-3006-31 | 3006-55 |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]05 | C5  | 16-30060-5  | 16-3006-17 | 16-3006-32 | 3006-56 |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]06 | A5  | 16-30060-6  | 16-3006-18 | 16-3006-33 | 3006-57 |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]07 | F6  | 16-30060-7  | 16-3006-19 | 16-3006-34 | 3006-58 |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]08 | C6  | 16-30060-8  | 16-3006-20 | 16-3006-35 | 3006-59 |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]09 | A6  | 16-30060-9  | 16-3006-21 | 16-3006-36 | 3006-60 |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]10 | A7  | 16-30060-10 | 16-3006-22 | 16-3006-37 | 3006-61 |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]11 | C7  | 16-30060-11 | 16-3006-23 | 16-3006-38 | 3006-62 |[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]12 | F7  | 16-30060-12 | 16-3006-24 | 16-3006-39 | 3006-63 |[/FONT]
 
MotoraceUSA.

1181242138214.jpg


Check the joystick closely in the above picture.

Hmm, I have a board, wiring harness, CPO, and I think controls from one of these. I'll have to check to see if there's an optical joy in there...
 
You occasionally see them posted on Ebay mistakenly identified as Joust optical joysticks, but they have a red ball. Nobody remembers MotoraceUSA, so if it is a 2-way joystick, it must be Joust.

ken
 
Ok I will have to check the romset, I believe that its green/white.

I could not find the front serial number. I did find one engraved in the wood just below the back door on the right side, I found the same number on a tag stapled to the back marked coin box. I also found the same serial number on every board and the monitor. I believe this machine is 100% original. Including the CP. Serial #612676:eek: My other Joust is a lower serial # and has the regular CP?
 
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