Reminds me of the racing games for the ZX Spectrum. They exploited the rubber keyboard and recommended the use of a large roll of Sellotape pressed on to the computer as a steering wheel.
It should be noted that they recommended that after one early racing game included a plastic wheel that rolled on the keys in the same manner, and people noticed that it was about the same size as a reel of sellotape
Sadly the major racing game that preceeded it, Psion's Chequered Flag, didn't thus support the key scheme that the reel of tape method produced; a shame, since it was by far a better game otherwise.
edit: also, of course, in early 1984 the spectrum+ became the default 'sinclair spectrum' and didn't really work with the plastic wheel / reel of sellotape method, so it was a fairly short lived method all told, even though it lived on as an option in a few games for a couple of years longer.
In 1986 there was also a surfing game that utilised a similar method of including a little plastic surfboard that rested on rubber key'ed spectrums, and depending on which way you tilted it, it would press certain key/key-combos down and claimed to thus give you a more 'realistic' control method.
I believe this one had little nubs under the board, and thus worked 'somewhat' on the Spectrum+ too. Notably the review calls out that at least one of the reviewers couldn't get it to work quite right on the + keyboard.
I'm sure I remember seeing an image of the 'official' wheel at the time, but I think it was in a less mainstream magazine - probably home computing weekly.
I did own the mastertronic rebadge of it a couple of years later, and it was dire, really dire.
Oh, and a fun fact, 'Mastertronic' still exists, of a sort... Flight Simulator and Train Simulator vendor 'Just Flight'/'Just Trains' purchased the Mastertronic brand about 20-some years ago, and purchases from them still show up as Mastertronic in financial records.
Reminds me of the racing games for the ZX Spectrum. They exploited the rubber keyboard and recommended the use of a large roll of Sellotape pressed on to the computer as a steering wheel.
It should be noted that they recommended that after one early racing game included a plastic wheel that rolled on the keys in the same manner, and people noticed that it was about the same size as a reel of sellotape
https://spectrumgamesuk.com/index.php?game=Formula-One
Sadly the major racing game that preceeded it, Psion's Chequered Flag, didn't thus support the key scheme that the reel of tape method produced; a shame, since it was by far a better game otherwise.
edit: also, of course, in early 1984 the spectrum+ became the default 'sinclair spectrum' and didn't really work with the plastic wheel / reel of sellotape method, so it was a fairly short lived method all told, even though it lived on as an option in a few games for a couple of years longer.
In 1986 there was also a surfing game that utilised a similar method of including a little plastic surfboard that rested on rubber key'ed spectrums, and depending on which way you tilted it, it would press certain key/key-combos down and claimed to thus give you a more 'realistic' control method.
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/zxsr.php?id=5078
I believe this one had little nubs under the board, and thus worked 'somewhat' on the Spectrum+ too. Notably the review calls out that at least one of the reviewers couldn't get it to work quite right on the + keyboard.
Damn, no images of the actual plastic steering wheel survive, if it even existed. The feature works, though, with the later Mastertronic instructions!
You're right about Chequered Flag too. Spent too much time on that game.
I'm sure I remember seeing an image of the 'official' wheel at the time, but I think it was in a less mainstream magazine - probably home computing weekly.
I did own the mastertronic rebadge of it a couple of years later, and it was dire, really dire.
Oh, and a fun fact, 'Mastertronic' still exists, of a sort... Flight Simulator and Train Simulator vendor 'Just Flight'/'Just Trains' purchased the Mastertronic brand about 20-some years ago, and purchases from them still show up as Mastertronic in financial records.