Posted by Derrick Renaud on 16, 2001 at 11:05 PM:
I wrote up a description of how joysticks are activated. This may help some people to design their own 8-way to 4-way joysticks convertors. It explains the activation fields on 8-way joysticks.
http://www.rentrondesign.homestead.com/JoyPrimer.html
It also explains a little more on different electronic switching methods and their drawbacks. Or (in my opinion) the closest you can come to a 4-way joystick when using electronic switching. If you are a mechanical purest then you can ignore that part. :-) But it still might be of interest to you.