I have this analog quickshot joystick. It is, in a way, my oldest piece of PC hardware. As I got it new when our 486 was still an up to date machine.

Recently I plugged it in again to play US Navy Fighters / Advanced Tactical Fighters, which are light flight sims. It quickly became frustrating: Pulling the stick back had the same effect as pushing the stick forward: The aircraft goes nose down.

I tried some other games with the joystick:
TIE Fighter: All is well
Wolfenstein 3D: Has a problem with turning right.
Jetfighter II - Joystick test: Pulling back far seems to overflow, and goes up again. In addition; Far right seems to overflow and starts on the left again
Primal Rage - Joystick test: Pulling back seems to overflow, and goes up again

Then Some joystick test programs shared by rfnagel Here:
Joytest: Counts to 255 while going back and right, then halfway past the center it overflows to zero. It starts counting from zero again in the remaining space.
Joycheck: After calibration it works fine. Ohm-meter is fine and smooth, it gives 200 Ohm maximum.

I tried an YMF724 soundcard as the host, instead of the SB16, but it made no difference.

Now Joytest did inspire me to find this workaround: In the USNF/ATF joystick calibration procedure, define the 'bottom right' just half way between the center and the bottom, but on the extreme right. It seems to work fine then.

I remember in the past, when starting TIE Fighter, I had to put the joystick in the Top-Left when starting the game, otherwise the game would not detect it. But this is no longer necessary.

Makes me wonder, are there any ways to use a digital joystick with a digital to analog converter? Only thing is, I remember digital joysticks often use their own protocol to communicate.