The 5200 Supersystem was a fantastic game system.  Atari took their existing 8-bit chipset which was used in Atari's home computers and basically turned an Atari 400 computer into a sleek black game machine which could play the best games titles around.   Atari also went a step farther and designed the ultimate joystick.   Featuring such innovative features as putting START, PAUSE and RESET right onto the controller, the gamer had complete control at the palm of his hand.    Also to fire back at Intellivision which continued to advertise how its joypads were far more accurate then the Atari 8-way joysticks for the Atari 2600 (Model CX-40), Atari engineers lead by Craig Asher who was in charge of designing many of Atari's hand controllers, designed the Atari 5200  joystick with a revolutionary speed sensitive 360 degree control system, also it was loaded (perhaps overloaded) with an assortment of control buttons.   Many engineers petitioned Atari's management not to release the 5200 (many referred to the joysticks as jokesticks) with its current version of analog controllers but Atari under pressure from Intellivision and the newly released Colecovision moved to use the joysticks as the were.   The joysticks are excellent for games like SpaceDungeon and Centipede and Missle Command, but try to play Pac Man or any other game that needed precise 4 way control with the ability for the joystick to reset back to neutral and you suddenly found yourself hating the 5200 joysticks.   Apparently a newer lower cost version of the 5200 joysticks were in the works.   Gone was the rubber hood which wore away within hours and added were spring loaded potentiometers.    While rumagging through a bag full of joysticks which came to me through a contact from one of Atari's 5200 engineers  just such an animal showed up from Atari's design labs.   A 5200 joystick which works FANTASTIC on games such as Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man and Moutain King.     Atari engineers also were working on a digital joystick and a 5200 arcade joystick as well.