{"id":19970,"date":"2018-04-09T15:53:32","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T19:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=19970"},"modified":"2018-04-16T09:19:58","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T13:19:58","slug":"the-lipstik-plus-access-1988","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2018\/04\/09\/the-lipstik-plus-access-1988\/","title":{"rendered":"The LipStik Plus (Access, 1988)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/darth-azrael.tumblr.com\/post\/172764116683\/retrocgads-usa-1988\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/tumblr_p3qhyxsqUg1tg94xho1_1280.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The LipStik Plus by Access (1988)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/darth-azrael.tumblr.com\/post\/172764116683\/retrocgads-usa-1988\">http:\/\/darth-azrael.tumblr.com\/post\/172764116683\/retrocgads-usa-1988<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This ad is for the LipStik Plus from circa 1988. It was a game controller of sorts released by Access. While having a headset in 1988 may have seemed cool, this was really a very simplistic device. It allowed you to say fire (or anything else) instead of pressing the fire button.<\/p>\n<p>I am familiar with the LipStik because it came with a game I purchased for my Commodore 64 by Access called Echelon. Echelon is a truly awesome game but the LipStik was completely irrelevant. I&#8217;m not really sure what the appeal was for an uncomfortable, too small headset that essentially just gives you a sound activated fire button. It got old pretty quickly after yelling fire! the first few hundred times. Maybe that&#8217;s why they started giving them away for free with Echelon. I think that it actually came with the LipStik as opposed to the LipStik Plus. It isn&#8217;t clear to me what the difference is except maybe that the Lipstik required using a second joystick port whereas the Plus acted as a pass through.<\/p>\n<p>This add claims compatibility with the Commodore 64, VIC 20, Amiga, Atari 8-bit computers, Atari 2600, 5200 and 7800, Apple II and IBM. The Apple II and IBM versions are $5 more at $29.95 I assume because they used a more expensive connector instead of the cheaper Atari style 9-pin connectors. Or maybe just because they felt owners of those computers were willing to pay more. This wasn&#8217;t really worth at at either price point. Perhaps they have some interest to collectors (I only see one listing on eBay at the moment) but it isn&#8217;t really very interesting as something to actually use. Maybe I&#8217;ll dig mine out and see if I can get some money out of it&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The LipStik Plus by Access (1988) http:\/\/darth-azrael.tumblr.com\/post\/172764116683\/retrocgads-usa-1988 This ad is for the LipStik Plus from circa 1988. It was a game controller of sorts released by Access. While having a headset in 1988 may have seemed cool, this was really a very simplistic device. It allowed you to say fire (or anything else) instead of pressing the fire button. I am familiar with the LipStik because it came with a game I purchased for my Commodore 64 by Access called Echelon. Echelon is a truly awesome game but the LipStik was completely irrelevant. I&#8217;m not really sure what the appeal was for an uncomfortable, too small headset that essentially just gives you a sound activated fire button. It got old pretty quickly after yelling fire! the first few hundred times. Maybe that&#8217;s why they started giving them away for free with Echelon. I think that it actually came with the LipStik as opposed to the LipStik Plus. It isn&#8217;t clear to me what the difference is except maybe that the Lipstik required using a second joystick port whereas the Plus acted as a pass through. This add claims compatibility with the Commodore 64, VIC 20, Amiga, Atari 8-bit computers, Atari [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[3173,3174,2362,2524],"class_list":["post-19970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-arcana","category-retro-games","tag-access","tag-lipstik","tag-retrocomputing","tag-retrogaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}