We recently bought a renovated Victorian townhouse in Pittsburgh. It is nice, and it has a long yard. While gardening at the far end, my wife, Heather, unearthed the above. No kidding.
It looks to me like a standard-issue Happ-like generic model, from any old JAMMA cabinet? Or is it from something in particular? I'm close to tearing up my yard to hunt for more remains...
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Youse kids. Not every lever is a joystick. More likely this is a handle from a mechanical device of some sort. (Given that you found it in a yard: Garden tractor? Could even be from a toy.)
Can't help you with the stick, but I'm curious as to what neighborhood in this fine city you live. From the tiny description I'm wanting to say Shadyside, but I could be way off.
Sure that's not the shifter from a riding mower or tractor? ... which would make more sense than a video game joystick being in your yard.
I remember that thing being between the "turtle" and "rabbit" icons.
Deutschtown, right next the Penn Brewery. Unfortunately, there's some run down areas between this part of Deutschtown and the other nice part of it.
Were in the War Streets for a while -- love urban living.
Shadyside is nice, but a bit too expensive. We really want to be close to decent eating, so are thinking about moving to the Walnut St. area in Shady.
It never even crossed my mind that it might not be from a joystick! It's sad, when I think about it.
It's the joystick from the Frogger game that George Costanza had the high game on. The machine was completely destroyed by a truck.
It looks to me like a hydraulic control lever from a mechanical digger/back-hoe of the JCB/Caterpillar variety. Difficult to be certain without anything else in the photo to give an accurate scale.
You live across the Allegheny River from me. Well, across the river and downstream a bit. I agree that Shadyside is too expensive. Same thing with Southside Flats.
You can't be too far away from the vacant house that mysteriously blew up some months ago.
Looks like one of those doohickies.
Agies, that was just a few blocks away! We looked out of the third-floor window to see the tail-end of the explosion, bit of wood flying hither and yon. It was obvious from the get-go that it was a gas explosion, however; they just waited a few days for press attention to subside before saying so.
All in all, that explosion took out 5 houses, including those immediately condemned and torn down. A lot of those houses over that part of Deutschtown are unoccupied. It would be nice if they could be renovated, but much of the housing stock is very poor.
It's a shame because I think those are some of the oldest houses in the 'burgh; it's just the later Victorian stuff around the edges (West of the interstate, vinial, voskamp, wettach and so on) that are in decent nick.
1979 Montgomery Wards 10 Horsepower Riding Mower, model HM4010, mower deck height adjuster.
It vibrated off when the cir-clip broke off the end. The height had to adjusted with a screw driver after the adjuster fell off, or perhaps they ordered a replacement. From the condition of the shaft this occurred 15-17 years ago.
If the original scene hadn't been compromised we could have told you how more precisely what happened.
Grissom
I second technogeek -- I seem to recall similar controls on rototillers and other devices that I was forced to toil behind as a child.
I'm more excited to know that BB posts are being generated right down the road from me. Next time I go to the brewery I'll look for the house with the solar cells on the roof and the steampunk inspired mailbox.
The chroniton emissions are above the background levels for this part of the galaxy. From the phase shift in the neutrino field, I'd say you're looking at some part of a machine that came from an alternate timeline where arcade games never existed. So there's no way this is an arcade joystick.
Further scans show traces of alien DNA. Probably Klingon. The subject had untreated pancreatic cancer, and must have lisped a lot due to a malformation of the jaw and tongue.
The metal part shows several micro-fractures which could only have been caused by oversplash from a disruptor beam.
The red plastic ball is perfectly spherical, to a tolerance of +/- 2 nanometers. That kind of technology will not exist for another 140 years.
The comments to this post are simply awesome. You guys bring tears of joy to my eyes.
Looks like one of those doohickies.
Troll! It's obviously a thingamajig.
Looks like a control lever from a two-way hydraulic spool valve -- probably off of a skid-steer, ditch-witch, or small excavator. Hydraulic-based, but still a joystick!
Perhaps you just haven't found the rest of the fossilized clown skeleton buried in your garden.
It's OBVIOUSLY a partially-digested femur with intact acetabulofemoral joint from an ancient hominid. Most likely torn off by a ravenous man-eating Pleocine clam.
http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/smithsonian.asp
I seem to recall owning a joystick with this type of knob in the early to mid 80's. The space in which it moved was a square. The base was shaped for right handers. I believe it was made either by Gravis or CH Products.
Looks like one of those doohickies.
Troll! It's obviously a thingamajig.
You sure it isn't one of those, umm, whatchamacalits?
Looks like one of those doohickies.
Troll! It's obviously a thingamajig.
You sure it isn't one of those, umm, whatchamacalits?
At first I thought it was a whoozawhatzit, but there's no doodads on the side.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have placed the artifact into an abstertive-hydraulic balneation chamber. Once it's completed the pots and pans cycle, I'll report back with any new discoveries.
All these nay sayers will sure feel stupid when you don't let them come over and play the Frogger machine you unearth in your backyard.
Go Pittsburgh!
where the good shit is buried.
Its part of a framistat.
Well, that will certainly reduce sinusoidal depleneration (with the aid of a metapolar refractive pilfrometer, of course). Does your balneation chamber use a base-plate of prefabulated amulite? If you power it with a Fourier transformer, be sure you're discrete about it.
It's a victorian era orgasm inducer, obviously tossed out the window one night when the husband came home from drinking brandy early.
Is Soviet sex toy. Wash off, good as new.
It's a standard Wico (or lookalike) red ball joystick shaft. The bit of teflon at the end pushes the leaf switches. Not a custom controller for any particular game, these were used all over the place since the dawn of time. I have a Xevious cab with this joystick.
Picture (with different sleeve though)
You should be able to look it up in Fostroff & Black's Bench Guide to Ball-Tipped Manufactured Levers and Shafts, Subterranean Supplement (12th ed.). I'd do it for you, but someone has borrowed my copy.
Yeah, what Luc says. I have a Mr. Do cabinet with almost that exact shaft in it. I bought a modern microswitch based unit for an aborted MAME project, and it looked very similar. I doubt it's from industrial equipment; the color and shape don't seem right.
Although it very well could be from the degaussing spool of a transmogrifier. Poor Calvin probably ended up turning into a large colony of amoeba.
Tell us how big this thing is--diameter and length.
Could it be an emergency brake from a train car?
Are we sure it's not the control rod from a TARDIS ???
think very carefully now; did you hear a faint twanging sound when you pulled it up, followed by very quiet but definite ticking?
I couldn't say for sure without dimensions, but it looks identical to the shaft for the HAPP stick in my MAME cabinet.
Note that HAPP (and probably other joystick makers) also has a division that sells to industrial customers, so the theory that it's from some piece of heavy equipment is not necessarily at odds with it being the same one as from Mr. Do.
Not the riding mower height lever though - It's a two axis controller, so arcade game or something big.
Steam control handle from an Atomic Coffee Maker.
http://www.melbournecyclist.com/photo/photo/show?id=1684380%3APhoto%3A599
Honestly, and you people call yourselves hipsters!
This is a dingus. I have two, and my dad had one for years.
Looks like the kind of thing you'd find sticking out of a control box on a Caterpillar or something.
Of course it is a Joy stick. Thirty-two commentors took joy in telling you it isn't from a video game.
Looks like you weren't the only stick in the mud in your back yard.
You really need to put it back where you found it. Trust me.
If you find another one can I borrow them for my new Steampunk amplifier, The Thermionic Acoustical ElectroModulator MK VIII?
Looks very like a 'Wico' brand joystick circa 1984. Weapon of choice for consoles or early home computers equipped with Atari 2600 style 9 pin digital connectors. Now.. where did I put that Commodore 64???
Why, it's a boojum! Definitely a boojum.
It does kind of resemble an arcade joystick, the ones on old galaga and pacman machines, but I can garuntee you it isn't. Coupe of reasons bring me to this conclusion:
1. An arcade joystick wouldn't have that smaller section, it would just be a straight piece.
2. The stick just isn't thick enough.
3. Unless the mud and whatnot is coving it I don't see any places for C clips to be put on the hold the plastic parts that hit the microswitches.
Plus the fact that it looks just a bit too long.
I've worked in an arcade for 3 years now and it doesn't look like anything I've come across. Now that's not to say it isn't some sort of knockoff or maybe it's to a console arcade stick or something. Or maybe it's just something I haven't come across before, but who knows.
Also upon examining the picture further it looks like it maybe has holes in it? For a cotter pin or something. Near the top and bottom of the fatter section at the end of the stick. That would definitely mean it isn't an arcade stick.
Maybe you could take high res pics of it cleaned up.
I'm going with gear shifter for an old tractor.
That, my friend is a control stick to a log splitter. I am sure of that.
Barry
Gear shift of tractor or some sort of construction vehicle is really the only thing that makes sense, considering where Rob found it. It probably snapped off during some renovation.
Isn't it really good fun when archaeology winds its way into every day life and leaves you mulling over the curious (recent) history of an ostensibly worthless, inane piece of refuse?
I bow to your awesomely entertaining answers, but I have one question. Don't any of you people have babies?????
I broke one of these so I know exactly what it is. It's the pin that controls the rotation of the front wheel of a Bob revolution stroller by letting you lock it into place or release it to turn. It's situated on the right side of the stroller above the wheel. Here's a link to a picture where you can just barely see the red nob that you grasp.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.healthchecksystems.com/images/bob_stroller_strides.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.healthchecksystems.com/bob_stroller_strides_fitness_stroller.htm&h=348&w=262&sz=23&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=Zq7LbHrRe4atlM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=90&prev=/images%3Fq%3DBob%2Bstroller%2B%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN
#39, it's exactly the same thickness and ball size as the NOS Wico stick I have here (I held it up to the screen and they match). Lengthwise this one is a few mm longer, but that could just be the mud. The WICO also gets thinner on the section that is not visible to the player, though less than this one. The WICO joystick on my Xevious machine also has the same type of plastic sleeve at the end.
If you were to clean this up, it would be a perfect replacement for a standard WICO-type stick. I'm sure they made more than one version of them since I've seen several variations.
Looks like one of those doohickies.
Troll! It's obviously a thingamajig.
You sure it isn't one of those, umm, whatchamacalits?
At first I thought it was a whoozawhatzit, but there's no doodads on the side.
See, that's what we call a Dingsbums in German. :)
But I thought a Dingsbums looked more like a widget, whereas this gizmo most definitely looks like a deelybob.
It's a fisterus.
No need for that kind of talk Percy. Any more and I'll come over and fisterus.
We had one of these, but the wheel fell off.
Hoddy
Amazing.
While I do agree that this is not a joystick, I instantly had flashbacks to my beloved Tac 2. It completely changed my life ... or at least the part of my life that revolved around Summer Games on the Commodore 64. I was fast!
It's a good thing you pulled it out straight of the mud. One turn to the left and you would have been face-to-face with a Morlock.
Don't mess with time and it won't mess with you.
No reports on it after it's been cleaned?
Boooourrns
Booourrns
Given the provenance, I would agree that it is most likely a clutch or PTO lever from a small tractor or culivator of the Gravely, Bolens or similar games. They could Pac-man a garden plot in no time, but poor Frogger only had one life.
It's an arcade joystick. You see that small sleeve at the end of the shaft? That's a spacer to enable it to work better with wooden control panels.
UPDATE!!!!
It went missing after I dishwashed it.
It's the mallet for a xylophone, but you can use it on certain kinds of bells, too.
Rob, re: Update!
Thats a little.. strange, isn't it?
You need to start questioning the other members of your house.. Kids, if you have them. Partner.. Dog..
Someone is working for the 'other side'.