The Game Paddles
This was a heavily used machine, not one that sat in some
box in an attic for most of the last 25 years. To me, that is part
of the allure of restoring it. The header for the game paddles
was in bad shape, lacking the original cover and even missing a pin.
I bought a new header with cover and installed it.. The
game paddle buttons were also in bad shape. The buttons themselves
were unreliable after a year of two of hard use. I can remember
having issues with them way back in the old days. When I pulled the
computer down out of the attic, I found that one had been replaced by
a similar, but different button from Radio Shack and the other didn't
work reliably. Luckily, I found the old button that I had removed
in a bin of stray electronic parts. I removed the buttons from
the controllers and soaked the old ones in contact cleaner over night.
They seem to be working much better now, if not perfectly.
I see that Mouser and Digikey sell very similar form factor buttons, but
they don't have metal shafts like the original Apple supplied game paddles.
I'm sticking with the Apple buttons, for now. Finally, I had
painted on numbers 1 and 2, since the paddles looked identical when new.
I have removed this paint, so that I can't tell them apart, once again.
Note that I don't have the correct hex nut on the left hand controller
in this picture. At some point I will locate the correct nut and replace
this temporary substitute.
Update 5/27/2007
I will be looking for a black header, since the red, isn't an
authentic color. Also, I finally found the proper hex nut and
have replaced the knurled nut with the correct one.