TAC-2

The Totally Accurate Controller MK2 (TAC-2), manufactured by Suncom Technologies, is an Atari 2600 compatible game controller, commonly used with the Commodore C64 and Amiga computers in the mid to late 1980s. It was one of the over 300 different types of digital game controllers produced in the 1980s and 1990s. It has two smaller siblings, the Slik Stik and StarFighter which are built in a similar fashion. The joystick square base came in two colors, black or creme.

TAC-2 joystick

Features:

• One 8-way stick (4 digital switches)
• Two fire buttons (both linked to button 1)

Technical features:

• TAC-2 has no microswitches, using instead a metal ball that short-circuited contacts around the bottom shaft of the controller.
• The fire buttons in the original version work with brass contact plates which tend to become oxidized and thus need care every now and then.
• 9-pin Atari style connector (DB-9 connector)
• Handle is a customized tire valve (TR-418) with a chrome sleeve which gives the TAC-2 its special characteristics.

A cost reduced version was released where the tyre valve was skipped and instead a white rubber gasket held a black plastic tube, the shafted metal ball inside was simply plugged into it (not screwed as the original version) and the brass plates in the buttons where replaced with the wire of the redesigned button return spring, it is mainly recognized by its shiny plastic stick instead of the chrome valve sleeve and deeper red buttons instead of the original orange.

Founding, Startup and Merger: Suncom, manufacturer of Tac-2 was incorporated in Illinois on 12 May 1982 (Illinois Corporation File Number 52729777) by its founder, Howard Leventhal (Born 1956). Thomas F. Quinn (1935-2004) a former executive from retailer Sears Roebuck, later became president of the company after Burton A. Slotky (1936-2014), a successful billiard table manufacturer provided investment capital. Quinn had been the buyer at Sears when a young Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, the original home video game maker, had no major customers and needed one. By placing an order with Atari and advancing millions of Sears dollars for manufacturing the order, Tom Quinn provided the financial spark that ignited the entire computer gaming industry.

Suncom was merged with its direct competitor Wico, also a Chicago area company in 1989 and later became a division of RCA Corp.