Looks fine so far. Is the lower poti connected with two wires (I only see one white wire) ?
Or is it at least connected to the other one (uses same ground) ?

copados33 wrote:

[..] to my suprise this thing doesn't have any circuitry or complex components apart from 2 potentometers and 2 microswitches.

Don't worry, that's okay. The PC Gameport is analogue, the axes are digitized via NE555 timers (or a single NE558)
located on the Gamecard. And the buttons are just switches, like on the Ataris. ^^

Btw, that's why the Gameport was so bad for arcade games but worked like a charm for flight sims.
I've got several books that describe how to use the Gameport for non-game software also.

You can use it to measure temperature, for example. Or to build a b/w scanner or a primitve oscillosgraph..
In some way or another, it's just like the original Gameboy. That one was also used for all sorts of data logging..

The white wire got loose while I was fiddling with it, I already soldered back where it was on the pot leg, so yeah, all looks fine but I still can't get it to work, haven't tried it in DOS yet; maybe its something related to the sound card? so far I have tried connecting it on a Awe64 gold, SB live 2b2000 and the onboard soundcard from the Asus P3 system.

Man, I got the same one. That's AWESOME.

Those joysticks are beyond PnP. They are literally like an Atari controller where each button is directly wired through the port. Each pot, button, and whatever has a specific pin on the gameport to drive it.

You should just be able to use Joy.CPL to connect it up. If that doesn't work, try using a DOS boot disk and Commander Keen 4, which is a known working game with that controller (As said, I have the same one)

Well a friend of mine hacked one of these to work with his Naomi arcade board, all I can say is that it works great with Monkey Ball 🤣 ; i will try that joy.cpl command but I'm not sure it that will work in W98...

Well, first of all, test it in a DOS game to be sure it's just a Windows configuration thing and not a wiring issue.

Beyond that, check your system devices. Often you will need to manually install the generic Microsoft 'Gameport' driver before you can use ANY controller on the Gameport. Not sure if you did this already or not.

If you have a Multimeter, you can actually check the pinout of the Joystick and confirm functionality yourself. E.g. if you measure resistance between the 5V line and the "X axis" line, it should change as you move the joystick from left to right. Comparing ground to the button lines, you should see not connected when not pressed, short circuit otherwise, etc.

Is there any generic joystick driver for DOS I can use?

No, because they don't use drivers in DOS. You just need to plug it in, install any drivers for the card you have installed, and then it will work right off the bat. Make sure the system is OFF when plugging the stick in, otherwise you can damage both the joystick and the card irreparably.

As I told you, grab a copy of Commander Keen 4 and test it out there. That game is known to work with that stick. Use the AWE64 too, that's the closest to my AWE32 which likes that stick. You can also try a M/I/O card, but most of them are ISA or VLB as all the PCI systems had onboard stuff.

If the values check out in the stick with a meter (Check to a varying resistance on the pots, and continuity on and off for the buttons.) when measured from the connector, then the stick is 100% fine. There are no real electronics to go wrong it it, it's all mechanical with the exception of pots and simple buttons.

Also try another stick if you have it on the cards.

Ok, tried it in DOS and it works, must be a windows problem then.