The Journey Joystick Debate

chris25810

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I don't want to keep clogging Chips4sales thread since he's just trying to sell a machine but once again the 4/8 way debate has come up and there's no real answer other than some people claiming they have an 8 way. I've owned, seen and spoken with many people that has/have or had these machines and all of them have the same assembly as what's pictured below. If you have an 8 way stick that looks different than this, please post a picture of it so we can all sleep well tonight. There is a good possibility that midway used both in the production run but i haven't seen it yet. Somebody end the mystery please!

midwayjoystick.jpg


This stick came to me with all the buttons/wiring, all fasteners and solder connections looked original and it had a factory paper tag tied to the harness with the journey name on it. This is a 4 way stick.
 
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ill check my Journey tonight.
i just bought a 4/8 way joystick from Twisted Quarter. it has the smaller plastic tip (in the middle of the switches) for 4 way and a bigger plastic tip for 8 way games. i think most of the joysticks made back in the day were about the same. the only differance are the size of these tips. with the small four way tip, just one leaf switch (or direction) at a time can be activated, and with the 8 way larger tip, two switches can be activated. so, if you have certain tips that will fit the joystick shaft in the correct position, i would think that just about any joystick could be converted from 4 way to 8 way. just my ideas.
 
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I'm assuming what you call a tip, i call the actuator. When the leafs are in place, this piece cannot physically be any larger for this joystick style without actually crushing the metal tabs of the leaf itself. Any difference would have to be made in the red plastic plate which would also match the hole in the metal base. The base hole looks the same under this red plate and it only allows for 4 way movement.
 
i think most of the joysticks made back in the day were about the same. the only differance are the size of these tips. with the small four way tip, just one leaf switch (or direction) at a time can be activated, and with the 8 way larger tip, two switches can be activated.

Most of the original 4 way sticks I have seen have a diamond shaped restrictor plate, like the one shown on Chris's pic. 4 way sticks from BITD move in a square diamond pattern. Think Pac, DK, Q*bert, etc. 8 way sticks, like in Kangaroo or Robotron, move in a circle. I haven't seen a 4 way that moves in a circle, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, I guess.

Tron had a hybrid type, with no restrictor plate to allow for diagonal movement but a tip that made it harder to hit both switches at once. Since Journey and Tron share hardware, and were made consecutively, and lots of joystick swaps were made, and Journey will play in MAME with diagonal movement, and KLOV has been known to be wrong before, it muddies the waters.
 
After selling my Journey I am unable to confirm the restictor plate. But, I did change out grommets and I do remember this restrictor.

Now, that is strange in the diamond pattern. From most all of the joys Ive seen, when the restrictor looks like this, its typically a 4 way. An 8 way can do 4 way with an actuator change.

When I initially tested this for Joe, I remember having to really force the joy in a diagonal direction to get the space ship to fly in an 8 way direction. Now, do you consider that an 8 way joy?

That restrictor has now thrown me off, I thought that was a 4 way. Im pretty sure thats what I had in my machine, but it was able to do 8 way movement.
 
This is a 4 way joystick from a journey machine brotherhay and until somebody posts a different picture i'm on the side of these were all 4 ways. Again, the factory could have thrown some 8 ways in but nobody has ever shown proof. Before i took this apart, i was able to tweak the leafs a bit so it would actually work 8 way but this is not normal for this joystick.
 
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After selling my Journey I am unable to confirm the restictor plate. But, I did change out grommets and I do remember this restrictor.

Now, that is strange in the diamond pattern. From most all of the joys Ive seen, when the restrictor looks like this, its typically a 4 way. An 8 way can do 4 way with an actuator change.

When I initially tested this for Joe, I remember having to really force the joy in a diagonal direction to get the space ship to fly in an 8 way direction. Now, do you consider that an 8 way joy?

That restrictor has now thrown me off, I thought that was a 4 way. Im pretty sure thats what I had in my machine, but it was able to do 8 way movement.

Depends on the size of the restrictor, how the leafs are adjusted, if the acutator is worn, etc. I can't think of a Midway joystick that didn't have a diamond restrictor. Tron being a good example allows the joystick to barely hit 8way and it uses a diamond restrictor.

Parts list for Journey seems to be the exact same as Burgertime according to the manual. Could it be Midway joysticks always allowed a sudo 8way like Tron, but it was up to the programmers to actually support it?

The world may never know.
 

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Depends on the size of the restrictor, how the leafs are adjusted, if the acutator is worn, etc. I can't think of a Midway joystick that didn't have a diamond restrictor. Tron being a good example allows the joystick to barely hit 8way and it uses a diamond restrictor.

Parts list for Journey seems to be the exact same as Burgertime according to the manual. Could it be Midway joysticks always allowed a sudo 8way like Tron, but it was up to the programmers to actually support it?

The world may never know.

And just how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?
 
Here's the ruling on this folks: These machines came loaded with a standard 4 way assembly. As i said before, you can manipulate the leafs and the restrictor plate to make these sticks function in an 8 way pattern but if your claimed 8 way looks like the picture above, it's a 4 way stick. Until somebody actually posts a picture (nobody ever has) of their stock 8 way that looks different, i'm just gonna pretend mine's an 8 way when actually it's not. Otherwise, my ms pac, wacko, tapper, timber and burgertime all have 8 way sticks cuz they are the exact same assembly.
 
Question... does the game "do" angles? If so, one could assume it should be an 8-way in there... if not, one should assume that it's supposed to be a 4-way... right?
 
Here's the ruling on this folks: These machines came loaded with a standard 4 way assembly. As i said before, you can manipulate the leafs and the restrictor plate to make these sticks function in an 8 way pattern but if your claimed 8 way looks like the picture above, it's a 4 way stick. Until somebody actually posts a picture (nobody ever has) of their stock 8 way that looks different, i'm just gonna pretend mine's an 8 way when actually it's not. Otherwise, my ms pac, wacko, tapper, timber and burgertime all have 8 way sticks cuz they are the exact same assembly.

Chris, I'll get a pic of mine posted this weekend. I heard some people talk of having to use a lot of force to get it to move diagonally. Mine moves diagonally without any special effort. So that's my entire basis for claiming it's an 8-way. If it's got restrictor plates or not or whatever else, I don't know. I've never checked. But I will post a pic the way is is on my game as it stands right now, I won't try to modify it for the pic. If people start mincing words with stuff like "well it's a 4-way that allows 8-way movement", I don't mean to start any kind of stuff like that. I'm just claiming 8-way based on the movement I get when I paly the game.

I actually have been in contact before from some team members that worked at Marvin Glass on the project team. I may try to contact them again and see if any of them may know.
 
Here's the ruling on this folks: These machines came loaded with a standard 4 way assembly. As i said before, you can manipulate the leafs and the restrictor plate to make these sticks function in an 8 way pattern but if your claimed 8 way looks like the picture above, it's a 4 way stick. Until somebody actually posts a picture (nobody ever has) of their stock 8 way that looks different, i'm just gonna pretend mine's an 8 way when actually it's not.

My stick does appear to be the same as yours. Do you get diagonal movement with yours? If not, what would be the difference?

Journey_joystick1_resize.jpg


Journey_joystick2_resize.jpg
 
My stick does appear to be the same as yours. Do you get diagonal movement with yours? If not, what would be the difference?

I notice your leafs are bent in a bit so that they will trigger easier. Tron is the only Midway game that I know of where the manual states what the distance should be for adjusting leaf switches.
 
I notice your leafs are bent in a bit so that they will trigger easier. Tron is the only Midway game that I know of where the manual states what the distance should be for adjusting leaf switches.

Good call on the slight bend of the leafs 2600. This should pretty much put an end to the mystery, this is the same 4 way stick used in most of the midway games including Journey. The programming allows for 8 way movement but it was all done on a 4 way stick with a little tweaking of the leafs. Mine does move diagonally Joe but the leafs are tweaked like yours too and they pretty much have to be unless the diamond pattern in the restrictor plate and the shaft guide are worn enough to make contact by mistake.
 
Good call on the slight bend of the leafs 2600. This should pretty much put an end to the mystery, this is the same 4 way stick used in most of the midway games including Journey. The programming allows for 8 way movement but it was all done on a 4 way stick with a little tweaking of the leafs. Mine does move diagonally Joe but the leafs are tweaked like yours too and they pretty much have to be unless the diamond pattern in the restrictor plate and the shaft guide are worn enough to make contact by mistake.

Ok, these explanations all seem reasonable enough. Do you think Bally/Midway did that by design (tweaked the leaf positions to allow 8 way movement).

Part of the reason for the debate is should MAME allow for or restrict 8-way movement in the game?

So in summary, sounds like the proper answer is "it's a 4 way joystick with leaf positioning that allows for 8-way movement". Maybe both sides of this argument were right (although I have to admit the people like Chris that said it's 4-way are probably "more right").
 
There's never really been an arguement that the game performs 8 way function, my arguement is with the ones that have claimed this game came with an 8 way stick. The last time this issue came up, i pm'ed several people to post pictures of this mysterious stick that i knew never existed and nobody could manage to provide one. Majority rules on this this one Chris, there are alot of other midway games using this 100% identical joystick and they're all considered 4 way though every one of em could be adjusted for 8 way function. Journey supports 8 way but it was done with a simple and very common 4 way.
 
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