Kempston Micro Electronics

Kempston Micro Electronics was an electronics company specialising in computer joysticks and related home computer peripherals during the 1980s. Kempston was based in Kempston, Bedfordshire, England.

Interfaces

Main article: Kempston Interface

Kempston produced a number of joystick interfaces for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum to allow normal Atari-style DB-9 joysticks to be used with it. Apart from implementing existing joystick interfacing modes they produced their own standard which delivered the joystick state on the Z80 bus at port 31 (read in BASIC using IN 31). This meant that the joystick did not produce key-presses like the other standards and the method was soon borrowed by other interface manufaturers and became quite popular.

Joysticks

Formula 1 and 2

The Formula 1 was based on the Quickshot 1 and released June 1985 at £16.95. Its successor, the Formula 2, featured three fire buttons, two on the base and one on the top, and was released June 1985 at £11.95.

Score Board

Features a base similar in size to a 48K Spectrum, with two fire buttons. Released June 1985 at £28.95

Competition Pro

It consisted of a square base, two large red buttons (for left or right handed use) and a black pommel stick. It used the Atari 2600 standard DB-9 connector and was primary designed to work with the ZX Spectrum Kempston joystick interface but also with the compatible ports built into other home computers such as the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 (& Vic-20) and later Commodore Amiga and Atari ST.

Internally the joystick used a series of metal contacts to signal movement to the computer. When the user applied pressure to one side of the stick it caused the two contacts to touch and form a circuit, commonly referred to as a leaf switch. This meant that it was easily repaired by unscrewing the base and adjusting the metal contacts so they touched correctly. Later joysticks used micro-switches instead.

It attracted its fair share of imitators on 8-bit computers who copied the colour scheme (itself somewhat derived from the original Atari joystick), but also more brazen copies which used yellow, square buttons or microswitches but essentially the same pommel design.

The design has been honoured most recently by the C64 Direct-to-TV device which fits an entire Commodore 64 and 30 games into the shell of a Competition Pro look-a-like case which runs off batteries.

Competition Pro Plus

Based on the Competition Pro this design saw micro-switches replace the leaf switches in every direction and the two fire buttons which became square and bright yellow.

This joystick was later produced by another company as the Zipstick and featured an auto-fire switch at the back.

External links

Defunct companies of the United Kingdom | Home computer hardware companies | Game controllers | ZX Spectrum