Oldsmobile seat control can actually work as an Atari joystick

Jason Torchinsky was able to figure out a way use an Oldsmobile seat control as an Atari joystick. Talk about a crafty piece of technology used on a relatively old gaming machine. Torchinsky used the power seat control switch panel from an 80s Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser and reportedly rewired it to function as a controller for an Atari 2600 console. The designer explained that the idea came to him when he realized that the control lever that adjusts the mirrors in a his can work like a video game joystick.

“I then had a waking dream of the grand possibilities of playing old video games with control pads sourced from cars. The dream was a beautiful, fantastical vision of a world we could all achieve. I woke up hours later behind a CVS, and headed straight to a junkyard to make this dream real,” Torchinsky said. He ended up using a seat control instead of a mirror controller. If you’re an electronics junky and love circuits, you can check out his project here. And oh, there’s a video in there too of him playing an Atari game with it.

Gene Ryan Briones
Categories: Design
Tags: atari