Richard “Shred” Körber recently got two Competition Pro Mini joysticks. The full-size Competition Pro was probably one of the most famous joysticks back in the 1980s and early 1990s. This model was said to be unbreakable, and was able to withstand even long and intensive gaming sessions. If one of the microswitches eventually failed, it was easy to get a new one from an electronics store and replace it just by using a screwdriver, no soldering required.

The Mini models came to the market in 1992, and were by far not that robust. My two examples had broken microswitches at the left direction. The microswitches are soldered to the PCB, and they are also out of production.

The closest available replacement is the Saia-Burgess F4T7UL and F4T7GPUL (the latter one with gold-plated contacts). Unfortunately it has different solder tails, so it cannot be used as a drop-in replacement.

I decided to build up a completely new PCB by InsaneDruid instead. It is a replica board with exactly the same size and functionality, but it is prepared to use the Saia-Burgess switches.

The joysticks look as good as new now, with their clean case and their brand new boards. The ENIG plated PCBs are a true eye-catcher in their transparent cases.

See the process in the post here.