Back in the early days of the very first incarnation of Amiga Incorporated(or was that "Amiga Corp."?), the newborn and mighty gods of Los Gatos feltthe need to get their name on the video game industry radar. A little cashflow generation and a cover for their top secret project looked like goodideas, too. So they fished around, purchased the rights to some wacky items,and entered the gaming market with some video game cartridges for the AtariVCS, a joystick, and the item that has been immortalized in the lore of afanatical computer cult: The Joyboard.
The Joyboard is a joystick for the feet. A video game player stands onthe board and moves his/her entire body for directional control. A standardAtari-type joystick (like Amiga's own Power Stick) plugs into the Joyboardto give the player access to a fire button. |  |
How did the Joyboard become so important in Amiga lore? Well, apparentlythe guys at Amiga Inc. liked to relax by playing the Zen Meditation game.They would sit as still as possible on a Joyboard so as not to close anyswitches. That's where the name of the infamous "Guru Meditation" errorin older versions of AmigaOS comes from.
Considering the Joyboard's history, I guess you could say it's a religiousitem. :-)
 | This is the Power System logo, beside the ancient Amiga logo. Thesealso appear on The Power Stick, though I have seen an Amiga Power Stickthat said "PRIDE" in place of "AMIGA" (but still had"AMIGA" molded into the game connector). There are some variations in the ancient Amiga logos that I have seen.The one on the Joyboard's label has triangles in the 'A's, but the ones molded intothe connectors have large dots instead. The logo on the Power Stick's labelhas small dots. The level of the lines at either end of the logo is different on thegame connectors, too.  |
This is the plastic disc that sits on the floor. The disc measuresless than three inches in diameter. The Joyboard balances on this disc, andit must take the full weight of the person standing on the Joyboard. |  |
 | Here are some of the Joyboard's internal parts. There is a steel coilspring (not seen) beneath the red flexible plastic "flower". Beneath thespring is the black plastic disc (shown above) that rests on the floor whenthe Joyboard is in use. The knobby end of the small red plastic piece(left side) fits into the central cavity of the "flower". The black "washer"is made of a conductive rubber-like material. |
 | This is what it looks like when all of the above parts are fittogether. Gee, I hope I'm not revealing any trade secrets! :-) |
This is the printed circuit board. The conductuve rubber washerpresses against those little contacts andbingo we have a reading! This is the really cool part of the Joyboard. Check out that copyrightnotice! |  |