I was doing some rummaging around this afternoon, when I came across this little artifact from the past: It's one of the boxes for my Wico “The Boss” joystick (or what my friends and I called it, “the Gorilla Grip”). I have two of these joysticks, which I bought back in the mid eighties. After all of these years, they're still going strong.

I remember buying these joysticks at our local Canadian Tire store. For those not familiar with Canadian Tire, it's a major department store, here in Canada, which started off as a small automotive parts store. In our small town, back in the day, it was one of three stores that sold Commodore computers and peripherals. I think most of my Commodore hardware was purchased at Canadian Tire back then.

As you can see by the price tag, The Boss wasn't exactly cheap. It cost me a respectable $24.99, which was pretty pricey for a teenager back then. But, it was apparently worth it, as I've gotten countless hours of gaming enjoyment out of it. It is my favorite joystick for the system.

And, just look at this marketing!

Now that's some pretty effective marketing, if you ask me. How could a fifteen-year-old resist that?!