The evolution of the Suncom TAC-2 joystick

Since a colleague was coming over from Australia for a business trip, I 
got a chance to order http://ombertech.com/contcable9pin.php without 
having to deal with customs. These cables use a very weird color scheme 
for the wires, but otherwise I have no complaints.

So far, I replaced the cables in all 3 Suncom TAC-2 joysticks that I 
have. I think that I got the controllers free of charge about 20 years 
ago. Coincidentally, it looks like I fixed them in chronological order 
of production.

The first two units had female blade connectors crimped to each wire, 
attaching to terminals in the metal parts that form the actual contacts 
for the buttons and the end of the joystick shaft. In the second one, 
the connectors appeared to have been pinched with a tool, to make a more 
secure contact.

The third one had a Suncom logo on the molded joystick connector, and 
the 3 screws that held the case together were extremely tight. The 
connectors had been optimized away: the wires were directly crimped on 
the metal parts.

I came across https://haxor.fi/the-legendary-suncom-tac-2/ and learned 
two more things: There was a cost-reduced version that was produced in 
China. The joystick shaft can actually break (and be fixed). According 
to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAC-2 the Chinese version had a weaker 
shaft as well.

What can we learn from this? The first evolutionary step (making the 
connectors tighter) seemed to be done in good faith: increasing 
reliability while not sacrificing repairability. The second step 
(crimping the wires directly on proprietary metal parts) is clearly more 
hostile to repair, basically requiring the wires of the replacement 
cable to be attached to wires of the original cable. The last evolution 
steps were apparently "pure evil", not improving reliability, simply 
reducing quality as part of reducing the production cost.

The patent https://patents.google.com/patent/US4439649A/en expired 
around the same time I got my joysticks, about 20 years ago. I wonder if 
any clones of the TAC-2 were recently made.

Best regards,

	Marko