Posted by Russ on 14, 2001 at 10:46 PM:
In Reply to: Switchable 8/4-way stick... posted by Cryofax on 14, 2001 at 8:14 PM:
Not quite mechanical, but if you're good with electronics it should be fairly easy.
Description taken from Scott's Unicade:
Wire Joysticks
The middle two joysticks and top-fire buttons are wired the same way as the buttons. The outer two joysticks, P1 left and P2 right, are wired to a circuit I designed to allow me to select between 8-way, 4-way, and diagonal modes. The circuit works via a switch mounted on the control panel. When the switch is in 8-way mode, the signals that come from the joysticks pass through the circuit unaltered. When the switch is in diagonal mode (i.e. Q-bert mode), a logical AND function is applied so that only the diagonals are registered. When the switch is in 4-way mode, P2 right, which is a 4-way joystick, takes over the inputs from the P1 left joystick. The inputs normally received from P2 right are disabled.