The Epyx 500XJ from 1986 was a high-performance digital joystick designed for precision and comfort, aimed at serious home computer and console gamers. Featuring a pistol-style grip and responsive trigger button, the 500XJ used microswitches that provided tactile and audible feedback—allowing players to feel and hear each movement. Its ergonomic design was intended to reduce fatigue during extended play, and it carried a bold warranty promising durability up to ten million uses over five years.
The 500XJ came in color-coded versions to match specific platforms:
- Yellow – Compatible with Sega systems
- Blue – Compatible with Apple II and IBM PC
- Green – Compatible with Nintendo systems
- Red – Compatible with Commodore 64 and Atari systems
Although marketed as “the world’s first high-performance joystick,” its acclaim was more niche, often favored by players of fast-paced titles like the Games series. Its build quality and platform-specific options made it one of the more distinctive accessories in Epyx’s hardware lineup.
The 500XJ Joystick was a right-handed gamer’s dream, and you can still find them pretty frequently on eBay. Sadly, the original manufacturer of the joystick(s) closed shop, and we no longer have access to any of the design specifications. We’ve debated perhaps doing a tear-down on some of them and see if we may want to make an updated version with an embedded chipset and an emulator and the games pre-loaded. We’d have to figure out either an HDMI out option, or something really fancy like Casting or AirPlay support (of course we’d need a way to configure this too).
For now we’ll leave it as an archived product, but if you do have any interest in it, please feel free to reach out via the licensing page.
