[Joyful music] [typing sounds]
Greetings, and welcome to LGR Oddware, where we're taking a look at hardware and software
that is odd, forgotten and obsolete,
and today's as usual is pretty much all three.
This is the ICONtroller by Suncom Technologies
and this is just a weird little input device which
actually wasn't so weird if you look at it in the context when it was made,
which let's just go ahead and do.
So this is the ICONtroller, "the ultimate cursor controller"
the spouse... spouse-saving? Oh my word
Maybe, depending on your situation, the space-saving
mouse alternative for IBM PCs.
Yes, this is made by SunCom technologies,
of course that's a little vague if you actually try to search for anything by these guys.
There a lot of companies named SunCom,
this is the one that's based in Niles, Illinois,
or at least it was until around 2003 or so
where they're absorbed into some Hong Kong company and that was that,
but yeah, back in the day and back in the eighties
and really early nineties in regards to this particular device
they made a whole lot of input devices and peripherals and
strange just accessories for computers and consoles and all that stuff.
Things like the snapper for the ColecoVision,
it made the joystick kind of more joystick-y I suppose,
it reminds me of those snap on things that you see for like XBox controllers nowadays,
and also they were most famous of course for the TAC2 joystick
came a couple different variants
but it was well-regarded and is still considered one of the best for 8-bit micros,
but then they did things like this:
The ICONtroller which was originally developed for
the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit, $20 accessory came out in 1987
developed as a space-saving thing for your desk
and it would let you use the up and coming GUI,
you know, the graphical operating systems like GEOS
but then with the rise of PCs and PC laptops
and especially Windows,
then they came out with this one in 1990 and it cost $99.95
It was mainly made for Windows 3.0, the idea was that you could use it with anything
that was Microsoft Mouse compatible
and of course, whether or not that was actually true depended on the software
and what it was looking for, but you know,
that was the idea and it's a good idea especially from the laptop area
because laptops didn't come with a mouse for long time
but if you wanted to add a mouse to it then, well that was kind of a pain
so you had a ton of things that came out around then, I mean
all sorts of mouse devices, I mean stuff that I've covered before as well,
like the mouse pen and what not but that this was another competitor
and this one was different in the fact that it would sort of
connect to the side of your computer, either the side if your laptop
or to the side of your desktop keyboard, which is what we're going to be
taking a look at here but
before we do so let's go ahead and see what is inside of this wonderful little package.
So, inside have the box here we get this
neat little package full of goodies, including of course
the manual straight away which
you know just pretty much covers the basics as far as how it works, you plug it in,
and you know you gotta make sure you have an actual IBM-compatible serial port and all that stuff.
And of course we get some software.
Again, I like just the fact that these little cut outs in the styrofoam are fit
just perfectly for these lovely five and a quarter inch and three and a half inch floppy disks.
But, yeah then here is the meat of this whole deal here and this would be, of course
the ICONtroller itself and some other things like
here's some little adhesive pads for sticking it onto the keyboard,
I have some anti-static cleaner here just case you have like Cheeto fingers when you're using it,
and a classic serial to parallel adapter because that's always useful.
We have some mounting hardware right under here,
this is to put like underneath it to keep it stable just in case it's a different height
from your keyboard itself and then, of course there's the ICONtroller
deal here, and it is actually a lot smaller
than, um, I initially thought it would be just
from the front of the box and everything, the pictures I've seen,
but yeah, just a little Doohickey here
and yeah, you got a serial connection and you can plug it in to parallel if you need to,
which I might have to,
I'm not sure if the computer I'm going to use it on has the working serial through that port or not,
but, anyway let's go ahead and plug this thing in here and see what we get!
Okay, so we've got the ICONtroller plugged in here,
have no need for this actual Microsoft-compatible mouse because we've got this!
So pretty much all you do is just use this little adhesive stuff
and stick it to the side the keyboard, I guess, so just kind of like...
[grunts]
Yeah, like that, so that's neat,
I think, the sticky stuff doesn't seem to be holding so well anymore,
I guess that's not too surprising,
but whatever, it'll work for the purposes of this video so,
let's go ahead and try the setup program here
and hopefully we should be able to demonstrate the mouse
using the built-in thingy and I hope you don't mind disk-loading sounds!
[drive whirs]
Oh, "SunCom Technologies presents
The ICONtroller, the ultimate cursor controller for mouse-driven software", yes,
we get the idea, we got the idea from the box.
"This program is designed to help you become familiar with the ICONtroller,
"follow the instructions on the screen, for further information consult your doctor."
[laughs] Documentation, whatever
Same difference!
So, yeah, as far as like what these buttons and everything do, I think this is about to show us.
Right, so that pretty much says but, let me just go ahead and point it out over here:
So, right up at the top here, we have the signal selector
and this switches between like one, two and three mouse buttons for whatever reason,
in case you just want to, that's what these are obviously down here for,
so if you have just a need for one, or just two, I don't really know.
Why wouldn't you just put three? I guess maybe there are some compatibility issues there,
so you have the actual controller itself which is just this little nub,
it doesn't move very much at all. Up here we have a selectable function button,
and this will actually do some different functions, different programs
if it makes use of them, and this right here is a speed indicator,
selector button... thing,
so if I press it you might see that the flashes green
the more flashes the faster the cursor is gonna go soon to put it on one
they're just that sort of like the DPI
you know, kinda not though because this thing's weird and old.
These are like the actual mouse buttons,
and then here we have a system compatibility switch, we have Microsoft Mouse mode here,
and I guess martian alien mouse mode there.
I use Microsoft. Anyway...
Let's go ahead and get right to the test of this thing,
hopefully I've plugged it all in this time! [laughs]
and actually is in the correct way. "You may now move the cursor in the area below.
"Hold the cursor control knob like a pencil" - like a pencil!
"The cursor will move in the same direction you move the knob." So...
It moves everything!
Dang it!
Let me just hold this thing in place!
OK, so yeah if you move it around then,
this is not like a pencil at all but...
there we go, that's... it's movin', that's good!
[drive whirs]
Dang it, man, this needs something like gorilla tape or something ridiculous
like crazy stuff now like fiberglass tape, it's insane!
Anyway, err "Select one of the operating speeds" Yeah, yeah
Okay, okay, well I think the rest of this is just going to kind of show like what these buttons do,
I mean, that's cool, but I will at least show the different speed thing.
I'm gonna put it up to... here's the next highest, and then even higher.
That makes the most sense to me, because otherwise you're holding it for a long time to go in any direction but,
depending on what you're using this for, like if using it for drawing or something,
I guess that kinda makes sense as far as why you would want to...
Yeah it's in Microsoft-compatible mouse mode
and the driver's loaded, you do have to load a little driver for this, but
yeah some programs are actually looking for the
actual Microsoft mouse, that kinda limits things a little bit doesn't it?
And if this works, that'd be cool...
Nope, it doesn't work!
Alright, so I've got none other than Flight Simulator 4.0 here,
and it is at the setup, where we're asking for an input selection and it does take a mouse,
which i thought it did, it is a Microsoft product,
they wanted to... No, I don't to use joystick, I just told you, I want to use a mouse... you jerk!
I just want to see how this works with a flight simulator, that's all.
I mean, I could probably just try Arkanoid again, but I've done that in like every other input video that I've tried!
So, err, yeah, alright.
Oh, whoa!
Alright, cool!
Theres... that's working, that's neat.
So, here's the problem with this thing: you move it with your fingers, like this right here,
and your buttons are down here, this is just like a toggle switch for... I'm not even sure what.
I mean, it kind of works as a mouse button...
But... then you're doing it like this, and if you want to use these other mouse buttons,
they're all the way down here, so this is really like a two-handed kind of thing,
I mean, I'm sure you could... use it as one if you did it like this.
That's just the most awkward thing ever, for me.
So, after looking in the manual and all this other stuff in here,
it doesn't actually look like I can fly the plane with the mouse.
I can, like, I can fly it with the keyboard and then control the menus with the mouse.
Who cares, that's not what I wanted to do!
Arkanoid, it is then, I guess!
OK, so I mean at least that sort of determines whether or not it works with a Microsoft-compatible mouse thingy!
For whatever reason, PC Paint just didn't like it because of the current driver that was being used.
This works... oh, sort of. Oh, jeez!
It's not the worst I've ever used, it's at least better than the mouse pen.
[laughs] That's not saying much at all!
I could see this thing being useful for, um...
Well, actually, a lot of things, this isn't actually the worst idea in the world,
it just needs some better way to attach, for one thing.
[game beeping]
In a way, it's too small to be even friggin' useful at all, that's kind of unfortunate!
So, I've got one last test here, and that is EA's flight sim Birds of Play!
"Play"! Birds of Play, we're going to go with that!
So, obviously not - oh frickin' copy protection, are you serious!?
"Fin area of the..." No one... Oh, come on, I can't use the Numpad, are you kidding me!?
Anyway, this is supposed to use a mouse, it looks like it does, at least for the menu, again!
So, we'll see... oh, this is like... there we go.
Yeah, the sensitivity, when it's up all the way to the max, I can see why you wouldn't want to use that,
[laughs] because the dead zone isn't very good!
I don't care, let's just do a run!
I've put it into easy-fly mode, let's see if that works... Oh, crap! Alright!
I guess it did! OK, OK!
I am at least able to fly here...
The problem here is that I'm running it on a 386 and this is... Oh, crap!
It is so incredibly hard to play on a system this slow!
Nooo, don't crash - actually DO crash to the ground, that would be hilarious, go ahead and do that!
But, yeah, it actually kind of works as a joystick!
A really tiny nub-nipple of a joystick, but is what it is!
Of course, the thing is, if you're going to play flight games for any amount of time,
especially one as complex as this one, then you're going to want an actual joystick.
I guess, this is better than nothing, if you had a laptop, or no joystick,
[laughs] it's better than nothing, that's about all I can say for that!
It functions, it functions, right? I can see what they were going for,
but, at the same time... What is this game even doing? I don't even care anymore. I don't care.
I'm done trying to mess with this thing!
And, that is all for this episode of Oddware, on the ICONtroller.
And, you know, if you would like to see more, then definitely check out my channel,
I've got a lot of other Oddware, as well as plenty of other things I want to look at in the future,
a lot of which are by SunCom! At least, if I can find them!
And if not, well I've got got quite a bit more to check out in the meantime.
And if you enjoyed this particular look at a piece of strange hardware,
then why not check out some of my others that I've done, quite a few up to this point!
And this is a recurring series, so you know more are coming,
that's usually how these things work!
So, subscribing is a thing that you can do if you would like to be notified exactly when they are released!
Let me know in the comments too, if you would like to see anything in particular on the show,
and I will see what I can do about getting it and reviewing it!
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And, as always, thank you very much for watching!