{"id":767,"date":"2011-05-16T08:50:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T13:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=767"},"modified":"2011-05-16T09:08:53","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T14:08:53","slug":"retro-scan-of-the-week-the-video-rack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/767\/retro-scan-of-the-week-the-video-rack","title":{"rendered":"<span id=\"retro_color\">[ Retro Scan of the Week ]<\/span> The Video Rack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/video_rack_large.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/video_rack_small.jpg\" alt=\"Video Rack Atari 2600 Controller Accessory Ad - Tammy Sue Distributing - 1983\" class=\"centered\"\/><\/a><span class=\"freecaption\"><em>Oh Tammy Sue, How I Adore You<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>How do you make a handheld controller into a non-handheld controller?  By strapping on a giant block of unwieldy plastic, of course.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/231\" target=\"_blank\">Stick Station<\/a> (subject of a RSOTW in 2006) achieved the same feat by using a large poplar board.  The result was far more stylish than the Video Rack, but equally useless.<\/p>\n<p>While there may be a handful of games that benefit from an immovable joystick base (like an arcade machine), they&#8217;re in such a minority that they don&#8217;t warrant a special peripheral.  I back up this observation by the fact that the Video Rack and Stick Station are exceedingly rare peripherals.  If everybody had wanted one, they&#8217;d be common today.<\/p>\n<p>There is one one notable case, however, where a joystick stabilizer really helps.  Atari shipped a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atariage.com\/forums\/topic\/172620-dual-joystick-holder-for-robotron-2084\/\" target=\"_blank\">special dual-joystick mount<\/a> with every copy of <em>Robotron 2084<\/em> for the Atari 8-bit computer line.  I have one, and it is awesome.<\/p>\n<p><center><em>[ From Electronic Games, December 1983 ]<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>Discussion Topic of the Week:<\/strong> In your opinion, what video games would benefit from using the Video Rack?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh Tammy Sue, How I Adore You How do you make a handheld controller into a non-handheld controller? By strapping on a giant block of unwieldy plastic, of course. The Stick Station (subject of a RSOTW in 2006) achieved the same feat by using a large poplar board. The result was far more stylish than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,13,27,26,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-game-design","category-video-game-info-and-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-retrogaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}