Over the years, people have been ridding themselves of their Atari collections, and I could not in good conscience, allow these items to see the eternal darkness of a landfill like E.T. had. Here are some of the items I've both gladly salvaged, and unfortunately inherited over the years.

The classic Atari joystick. The very icon of "video games". Durable and responsive, the CX-10/40 suitable for many years, and with Atari producing repair kits, many years after. The joysticks came packaged with the Atari VCS as a pair, with the Atari CX-30 04 Paddle controllers, allowing head to head multiplayer in Combat, right out of the box. Forward-compatible with the Sega Master System and the Sega Genesis, with its fire button being recognized as 2 and B, respectively, the joystick saw use in many households well into the 1990s.

Packaged with the Atari VCS, these twin rotary controllers provided precise, single-axis movement for players, leading to many frenetic matches of Demons to Diamonds, Warlords, Spider Fighter, and more. Over the decades, the paddles can become jittery due to oxidation inside of the potentiometer (rheostats, variable resistors, or varistors) that transmit the rotation angle to the game program during play. It's possible, albeit tedious, to disassemble the potentiometers and clean the oxidation from them using contact cleaner spray, or any gun-cleaning solution. It may still be less of a hassle to simply purchase replacement 1M (1 mega-ohm) potentiometers to replace the existing ones, if there's a Radio Shack or other electronics component dealer in your area. Just be sure to verify the dimensions of the original potentiometers before buying replacements. Measure twice, (pay) once.

Visually, but not functionally similar to the paddle controllers is the Driving Controller. It operates with unlimited rotation in either direction, used for steering in specific games. Also unlike the paddles, it only comes one to a DE-9 connector, so each player will need one, rather than sharing a paired set.

Officially only usable with Star Raiders, this keypad controller makes use of inlays to label its 12 buttons for various functions in the game, though only 5 are used in Star Raiders. An undocumented function of the Video Touch Pad is that it is electronically identical to the Atari CX-50 Keyboard Controller, and can be used with any keyboard games, provided you have two of the touch pads. It is advised that you duplicate the markings of the buttons on the Keyboard Controller for use as an insert for the Touch Pads, as the Touch Pad buttons are unlabeled by default.

This joystick compensates (?) for its lack of a massive base, by utilizing four vacuum-adhesive suckers on its underside, for locking it to any smooth surface, such as glass, steel, or plastic. When firmly affixed in place, the joystick provides responsive control, and provides particular utility in games like Zaxxon, Solaris, and Tomcat: The F-14 Flight Simulator. All three of the buttons on the controller perform the same function, and there is no rapid-fire capability, although this could be added by a sufficiently skilled electronic engineer with a timer IC and the appropriate assortment of components from Radio Shack. RGA produced other version of this joystick, being the RGA-1160 which differs by having only one fire button on its base, and the RGA-118, a pair of wireless (via RF) joysticks also having a single button on their bases.