The ’80s called. They want their autofire back.
It’s been a while, so I figured I’d try to bore some of you with some old computer stuff. Who knows, maybe someone will find this either useful or interesting I rescued a bunch of old consoles and computers from my parents’ place last time I was over, among them a Spectrum +3 (yes, I know, it’s really an Amstrad…) with a bunch of 3″ disks, tapes, and a Cheetah 125+ joystick. Cheetah 125+ joystick The joystick needed some work doing, and while I was on with that I took a look at its autofire, which as far as I knew had never worked. Joysticks of this age operated as a simple set of normally-open switches connecting a common line to each of the direction and trigger signals. There were a number of different wiring schemes, but the Cheetah boasted dual connectors for Kempston and Sinclair-compatible. This particular unit had lost its original connectors but was correctly wired (minus some broken wires) for the +3’s joystick ports. Autofire circuits, then, had to sit inline with the trigger signal and toggle between high impedance and near-short – unless the computer system pro