A while ago we reviewed a USB vacuum cleaner and I was amazed how many emails I received from people asking for more reviews based around "cool gadgets". Today we are continuing this theme with a device which will appeal to the older guys amongst us who remember the Commodore 64 with fond memories. Yes you would be right, I'm one of those people who in their childhood spent many a weekend with games like Ghostbusters, Bruce Lee and Uridium.

Technology has advanced remarkably since those glorious heydays (see image above) and we are now blessed with Anti Aliasing, insane resolutions on 23 inch LCD monitors and processors running at 4ghz, so for the purposes of this article I'm going to need you to forget all that, try very hard.........

Well there you have it, from a gray box to a funky little joystick, those of you with really good memories will remember the design instantly as a faithful copy of the Competition Pro 5000 joystick.

*Custom 0.35 micron ASIC chip running at 1 Mhz.
*128K RAM, 2MB or ROM.
*256 colours available on screen.

The packaging is simple and you can see its securely sealed via wires through the lower chassis of the C64 DTV. This device is powered by 4 AA batteries, getting access to the battery section is via a screwdriver. Connecting to a television is straightforward enough, one yellow lead for video and the white lead for audio (mono).

An interesting fact about this device which might affect some United Kingdom users - Gadgets.co.uk have worked with the manufacturer to import a limited number from the USA prior to the official UK launch in 2005 (the exact date I'm not sure at this point). The model I received, although designed to work with NTSC (American standard) televisions, will work with most UK TVs manufactured in the last 5 years. The television in my computer room is pretty old and it couldn't handle the pure NTSC signal and displayed the images in black and white, however, my Dell 2001fps has video input and coped with the signal admirably.

True to the Competition Pro 5000 design this joystick has the famous oversized red buttons at the front with an additional four buttons for some of the games and a reset button to reboot the device. The power button is also at the rear.

Booting the device is as simple as flicking the power button and you are welcomed by the legendary "C" logo followed by the copyright and licensing information.

Remember this screen? I started my ill fated programming career via this blue window and created many a cool adventure game, but the less said about this the better. This is all automated and then we are greeted with the game menu list, all 30 titles.

*Championship Wrestling *Cyberdyne Warrior *Cybernoid *Cybernoid II *Eliminator *Excelon *Firelord *Gateway to Apshai *Impossible Mission, *Impossible Mission II

*Jumpman Jr. *Paradroid *Pitstop *Pitstop II *Ranarama *Silicon Warrior *Speedball *Summer Games *Supercycle *Sword of Fargoal

*Tower Toppler *Uridium *Winter Games, *World Karate Championship A *World Karate Championship B *Zynaps *Bull-riding *Flying disc *Sumo-wrestling *Surfing

They have even included Easter Eggs in the C64 DTV, with new games being unlocked via special button presses and a popup keyboard also on the list, no I'm not going to tell you how to get these hidden features but I will show you the keyboard.