These are projects I'm planning to do sometime in the future. Exactly when is anybody's guess. (Still, I think that's a pretty cool looking graphic up there, if I do say so m'self.)

The Cheep Yoke (featuring CheepSwitch Technology) is an attempt to build a Star Wars type yoke control, as inexpensively as possible, using commonly available parts. Originally I'd hoped to use the same basic optical encoder setup as in the Cheep Spinner, but that proved impossible without adding gears. At this point, I'm looking for either a ready-made gearbox, or I'll have to gut a cheap USB analog joystick and use the guts from that instead.

The design for the handles is working out quite nicely (which will be a lot cheaper than buying the real things). They feel just about right, but the big issue with them will be durability.

If you're thinking "that's too much work just to play one game", you're right. But you can also use a yoke for PaperBoy, RoadBlasters, Hydra, Return of the Jedi (like anyone ever played that one), Spy Hunter and undoubtably others.

Update 6/26/01 - Well, so much for that plan. The handles just weren't durable enough. After a lot of thought, I'll probably end up buying some from Happ. Sure, it's not quite as "pure" that way, but I don't think it'll cost that much more, and it will end up saving time (which costs money) in the end anyway. Right now though, the Cheep Yoke is on hold until I get a few other things out of the way.

Tehrasha (a regular on the MacMAME Message Board) joked that I should "build a trackball assembly out of an undrilled bowling ball and two rolling pins." Well, that's just plain silly, because obviously it would take three rolling pins. But I was so taken with the lunacy of the idea, I'm actually going to try and build one. It's gonna be a brute, hence the name: the Cheep Monster. (And you thought the trackball on Atari Football pinched your hands!)

Originally, I drew up a slightly different version of Cheep as a monster for this project's logo, then decided it didn't quite fit with the rest of them, and made the "fluffy Frankenstein" version. But here 's the original anyway, for the curious.

Discs of Tron used a spinner that rode up and down on a spring-loaded axis. By pulling and pushing on the spinner knob, you could aim higher and lower. The Cheep-O-Tron will be an attempt to add that capability to a Cheep Spinner, without sacrificing normal playability.