Greetings, and Welcome to LGR Oddware!

We're taking a look at hardware and software that is odd, forgotten, and a bit obsolete. And this right here is the Mad Catz Panther XL controller for the PC.

And you know, flightsticks aren't oddware. Trackballs are on the edge, but not really. They're still pretty darn useful. But if you combine them together in a late 90s, first person gaming controller thing like this, I think that qualifies.

Let's take a closer look!

All righty, so, this is the Mad Catz Panther XL.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Greetings, and welcome to LGR Oddware!Where we're taking a lookat hardware and softwarethat is odd, forgotten and a bit obsolete.And this right here is theMad Catz Panther XL controllerfor the PC.And you know, flightsticks aren't Oddware.Trackballs are on theedge, but not really.They're still pretty darn useful.But if you combine themtogether in a late 90s,first person gamingcontroller thing like this,I think that qualifies.Let's take a closer look!All righty, so, this isthe Mad Catz Panther XL.\"The first complete 3D combat controller,\"offering advanced controlfor first person 3D actionand flight sims\" with a lot of buttons,and \"360 degree independentmove and aim control.\"Yeah, this was announcedon Halloween of 1997,and it hit store shelvesa month or two after that,towards the end of theyear, costing $79.95.That was the suggested retail price,at least on launch in 1997.Although it wasn't longbefore it went on salefor lower prices, from what I've seen.But yeah, this is a classicflight-style joystick plus throttle.A very little throttle, but it's there.The main thing of course,is it has a whole trackballjust grafted onto the side.And it's not just a solid red trackballas the box art implies,it's actually a translucentilluminated red trackball.It's actually pretty cool looking.Yeah, it lights up with the LEDsinside the actual unit itself.Supposedly, it's really greatfor first person computergames in particular.And to that effect, it camewith demos for \"Jedi Knight\",\"Redneck Rampage\" and\"Turok: Dinosaur Hunter\",on this initial releaseof it like I have here.But later on, it was actually bundledwith some version of \"Half-Life\".So yeah, all that to say,it really is designed for FPS gaming,not flight sims like prettymuch every other joystickon the market back then.Though you could stillplay flight sims, of course,but it's just not optimizedfor that, and we'll see why.But yeah, it has a lot of buttons,nine individual buttons on the joystickand around the trackball,as well as two four-way hats,that little throttle dial,and the trackball itself.Plus an area around backwhere you can plug in anoptional set of rudder controlsthrough another 15-pingame port back here.And yeah, this all goesthrough just one game port.You can just plug that intoyour computer and get it all.And that's a lot of inputsfor just a single 15-pin game port.There's 17 individual buttons here.Normally you only get four,so what the heck was going on here?Well, it uses FPgaming'sAssassin 3D protocol,which predated this by a couple of years.But that does pretty mucheverything you see here,and it passes digital packetsthrough the analog game port,and allows it through softwareto just get a whole bunch moreaxes and inputs and all that.It's the same kind ofthing that Microsoft,Gravis, Thrustmaster,Logitech and others didto extend game port functionalitybefore USB made that unnecessary.With each one of those standardsfrom each different companyusing their own incompatiblecustom digital protocolsto slam data back and forththrough the MIDI/game port,and they all required customconfiguration software to use.Now, in terms of the other thingsthat Mad Catz in particularwas doing back then,while I've done an entire videoabout the company's historyup until some years ago anyway,they've sort of come back since then.But while they were known primarily forthe second player controllers on consoles,they very much madestuff for PC back then,including the Panther DX,which was just the joystickand throttle on its own.It's the same as you see here on the XL.Alongside the Panther, whichwas just a rebadged versionof FPgaming's Assassin 3D product,which is a game port passthrough device,just the trackball thatyou could plug into,or rather you plug thejoystick into the trackball,and then that into the computer.And yeah, it was just adaisy chaining kind of thing.And then Mad Catz finishedout this line of Panther stuffwith a blue balled versionfor the Sega Dreamcast.I didn't actually know that was a thinguntil researching for this.Let me know if anybody'sever used one of those.But yeah, I bought mine righthere about six years ago,and it's only one of maybe two or threethat I've ever seenshow up on eBay before.They seem to be very rare beasts,and I might not even know about it at allif I hadn't been introducedto it back in the dayby seeing it in the manual forthe original Unreal for PC.And of course thosefamous, infamous really,John Romero ads in \"PC Gaming\"magazines back in the daywhere he's about to make you his customer.The dude was obviouslypaid to shill for this.But you know, there's aHouston Chronicle articlefrom fall of 1998 that Ifound where he brought it up,and he brought it up in otherinterviews several times,and other places online.So maybe he could've beena true fan of the product.Though, he also statedbasically the exact same thingabout the Logitech Wingman Warrior,in ads for that joystick solution.So, you know.And he's also gone onrecord saying he was quote,\"horrified\" by these ads.So eh, you know,John Romero's official endorsement or not,these things really did earn a dedicatedcult following over the years.There were some folks thatswore by these things!And for a while, there was also a guythat was taking these andconverting them over to USB,and selling them back to folksso they could use themon modern systems easily.And another guy who did optical mods,actually taking MicrosoftIntelliMouse type of thing,and swapping the innards,so that the trackball didn'trely on wheels anymore.I mean, it did prettydecently in terms of reviewsand press coverage and all that,but as much as some may have liked it,there was always the bigasterisk in all the reviews,just having to dockpoints due to the overalllack of games support.Because again, it really doesrely on Panther XL profiles,and an external program toget it to work with DOS games,and you know, some Windows games,really most of them, didn'thave support for it built in.So, kind of your standardfare for Oddware really.So let's get this oneopened up and hooked up,and try it out.Yeah, it was nevercomplete when I got this,so a lot of stuff is missing.We do at least have thisa quick start guide,which tells you how toquickly start thingsand play the different games.Each one of them is a...Eh, it's a bit of an ordeal.Not not crazy, but it is what it is.Whoops, I guess we weresupposed to read this first.Here's how to insert ourcontrol ball into the socket.Yeah, we'll take a look at that.Oh yeah, I almost forgot.I did have this in the box,but this is the Panther XLCD that I've found.So yeah, that's the software and set upfor the actual game port,which is kind of necessary.The computer just has no cluewhat to do with this otherwise.Anyway, yeah, this is the stick itselfwith our trackball over here.Buttons, buttons, lots of buttons.There are four of these red ones.1, 2, 3, 4.2 different hats.Here's where the rudder plugs in.And it does not twist or anything, so.Actually, the trackballis typically treatedas a rudder in flight sims,which is not ideal,but that's how that comes off.And there you go.There's our ball.Again, I just think it looks quite neat.And we got a nice, clean ball bay,which is because I've cleaned it.Unfortunately, this is one of those whereit's really suffering fromthat rubber degradation,so these have gottenreally, really sticky.But you know, it's stillusable at the moment.And...Hm.That rubber.It's got one of those boots around it,which is also getting very sticky.But you know, it exists.And yeah, all you gotta do isplug it into the game port,and get the software going,and let's go ahead and do that,and give this thing a testwith the games it came with,as well as some other stuff.Okay, got the Panther XL pluggedinto the game port there.And yeah, the LED behindthe trackball is powered up.Actually, multiple LEDs.There is a switch along the bottom hereto turn that on and off,but I quite like it illuminated.In terms of getting it set up,the CD and the software that came withmade it pretty self-explanatory.So you do have a PantherXL Control Center,but what you really gotta do is go in hereinto your gaming options,and make sure that the thingis actually selected from the list here.Once that's added though, then it's fine.You can do all of yourcalibration things here.Mm.Feels so good.And test out all of your 13 buttons.Really more than that, becauseyou have these two POV hats.Up to 17 inputs on here.And the trackball over here acting as,at the moment, kind of a rudder?Like a relative position rudder.It's a little odd.Got their little teenylittle throttle down there.And in terms of setting it up,I mean it's just normalcalibration stuff really.But you also have thisPanther XL Control Centertaking care of a majority ofthe configuration settingsfor various games.Mostly DOS games in here,but not all of 'em are DOS games.So the way this actually works,being that it is such a complicated devicegoing over a game port,is it is fully relyingon the software itself,and or individual games being codedto use this thing directly.And obviously, anything before really 1998is gonna have no ideawhat to do with this,with a few exceptions.There are some '97 games that have supportfor the earlier Assassin 3D,which is really the same thing,as the \"Read Me\" file goes over here.\"The Panther and PantherXL are 100% compatiblewith FPgaming's Assassin 3D.Any game drivers orconfigurations which mention thatwill work for the Panther as well.\"So it does extend the numberof games a little bit.It's not like the Assassin 3Dwas extremely popular either.But yeah, first off,let's just go back to...Actually no, we're gonna start withthe things that it came with,or a couple of them anyway.Like the \"Jedi Knight\" demo.And this has a support for the Panther XLbuilt right into it.Confusingly, Aureal 3D,\"A3D\" for the soundis also supported,but Assassin 3D is abbreviated\"A3D\" all the time,so you see both.But anyway, select my profile here.The way that this works isyou gotta go over into the controls,and you don't do anything in termsof setting up the joystick here.This is just gonna look atwhatever's on the game portand try to configure it via what it can.But considering this is a unique setup,it needs a unique configuration file.So, this is not theright thing to click on.What did I do?Here we go.You gotta go to \"load configuration\"and choose FPgamingAssassin 3D with joystick.So this is one of 'em thatsays it's the Assassin 3D,even though it's reallygonna be working with this,'cause they're the same basic thing.- Stay sharp.- I shall.So yeah, if...If you want to use theregular mouse and keyboard,you can still do that.But why would you?We have a Panther XL here.So by default, this is usingthe joystick as strafe.Move forward and backward.We've got our various inputs for...Well, I guessthose don't do what I thought.Oh yeah, this is kinda a weird one.Switch weapons and everythingis put to the hats but...Hat right is jump and hat down is, ah.And then our trackball.Oh, yes.It is inverted by default,so pushing it forward goes down,pushing it backwards goes up.And that's just how thisthing is always configuredwith every game by default.So unless there's a wayto change it in game,it's kind of tricky.You have to go and edit some text files.I'll show a little bitof that later, but...I mean, you can either justget used to the inversion or...Oh gosh.I'm not used to inversion.Anyway, you can either juststraight up get used to it,or you know, try to dig around filesuntil you find the right setting.How do I...Yeah, there we go.Ah, dang it!This hat is very sensitive.Okay.Oops.Again, the inversion.Oh my goodness.There we go.Yeah!All right, now what?Oh, it'sprobably not a good idea.Oh, welp.Well anyway, we got a lotmore games to go through.So, let's go to the nextdemo that it came with,which is \"Turok: Dinosaur Hunter\".3Dfx version.Sort of a similar thing here.You don't choose keyboard and joystick,you choose keyboard and custom joystick,and then you go into the setup here,and choose the Panther XL.Okay.And here you can seeall the different thingsthat the different axes will be doing.So yeah, throttle does nothing, of course.Looking around is that...Mm, 3Dfx graphics.Such graphics!So, pretty similar setup here.Looking around with the trackball.Inverted, as usual.You can change that inthe options, but I didn't.So let me get outta thisbush and find a weapon.Man, it's so counterintuitive for me.Not necessarily the inversion,although I'm not superused to that either.But it's the fact that I'm looking aroundwith the left hand,and then moving with the right.Just about every other setup I ever useis the opposite of that.Whether it's a controlleror a keyboard and mouseor arcade games.Anyway...Something I'm sure thatyou can get used to, but...Oop.Yeah, I'm sure you canget used to it, but man.That and the sensitivity.I haven't actually seen away to adjust the sensitivityof the trackball to make it less twitchy,and kind of like, ah!It just kind of is what it is.I just hunted a dinosaur.It's almost like that'swhat this game is called.Anyway, I mean, you know, it works fine.But let's really put this to a testwith something thatI'm more familiar with.Good old \"Unreal Tournament\".This is what we're gonna try here next.And yeah, it was advertisedin the booklet for \"Unreal\".I think I mentioned earlier.It might have been in someadditions of this as well.But yeah, Epic definitelyhad a bit of a thinggoing back and forth with Mad Catz.The input, all you gotta do is change...Well, nothing.You just select joystick andmake sure that's enabled,and I think that's it, if I recall.It just detects this thing.It detects all kindsof different joysticksin the background.And you can now changewhat the X and Y axis doon the stick itself,but you can't adjustlike any of this stuff.'Cause again, it's justconfigured for that,using things in the background,which is both awesomeand a bit of a bummer,because it'd be nice to really fine tunesome of these controls, but, you know.Okay.Ah!Ah!This is such a counterintuitive wayfor me to play this game.'Cause I'm so darn familiar with itwith a mouse and keyboard that it feels...Oh my goodness!I just missed the Redeemer!At least I killed somebody.It's my natural inclinationto want to turn with the joystick,because I used to play FPS gameswith a joystick that way.Uh...That's fighting against me as well here.Okay.Volatile ammo.But yeah, it's set to strafe by default,and then this turns, which it makes sense.But for me personally, this is the thing.I just want the turningto be with my right hand,and the strafing andmoving forward and backto be with my left hand. Youknow, mouse and keyboard.Nuh-nuh-neh-nuh-neh-nuh-neh!You have to untrain that.And I know that that wouldnot have been as, well...As much of a thing in the 90s, right?Because like, oh my goodness...Mouse and keyboard WASDcontrols and all thatweren't necessarily standardized yet.It's undeniably a really cool systemif you get used to it, I think.Just, I don't want to get used to it.I don't like this!It feels bad.And I have tried it to where, you know,the joystick makes things turn,and this makes it strafe.Or even like other buttonsmake things strafe.None of it really helpsmy gameplay experience,because I'm just not used to it.I'd simply have to spendso much more time with it.On that note, \"Quake 2\" is somethingI had to mess around with abit, and spend some time with,and figure out first becauseif you just open it up,it doesn't know whatthe heck to do with it.You actually have to open thePanther XL Control Center,and \"Quake 2\", it hasa configuration here.Once you've selected that,you tell it where the app is,and then you launch it through here,and then it has an executable that runsthat then opens up \"Quake 2\",and tells it that, hey,the Panther XL is a thing.Yeah, once you're in thegame, it is all good.Ah!At least it would be,if you were familiar enoughwith the way that this feels.You know, the whole thing was that,\"Oh, you could counter strafeand do things like that.\"Uh...But you can with a normalmouse and keyboard,so it's really odd.Let me read you this description, okay?From 1998, I think, it'sjust on the website I found.It says, \"The Panther XL allowsthe player to \"Free-Look\"totally independent ofthe direction of travel.With this independent controlyou can run one directionand fire in anotherwithout breaking stride.You can also \"slide\" aroundcorners with your gunalways aimed in front of you.As if you couldn't witha mouse and keyboard.I mean...Or you know, a trackball and keyboard.Why do you need thejoystick, is the thing.I guess the combinationof having the joystickwhile they were still en vogue,and then also being able touse it with a flight sim.You know, obviously I'm not goodwith mouse and keyboard either but...Nah, I don't know.I could almost see the appeal of this.It's just 25 years later, eh,it's a hard sell coming at it fresh.Speaking of which, let'stry a flight simulator.\"Combat Flight Simulator\".And yeah, for this,you have a pretty standardjoystick selection.Because as far as I know,this doesn't have any...The heck.Specific support for the Panther XL.Where are we gonna go here?Let's do Central Paris.All right.And yeah...This right here is really just going to betreating it like a normal joystick.And this right here actsas a rudder by default.If you're just playing a flight sim,the trackball will just act as whateverthe rudder axis is on the joystick,unless you hook in an external optionalrudder device around there,with the other game portpass through in the back.But yeah, just, just on its own,it's literally just a rudder.And I think kinda weird too.It doesn't self-center.It's just not ideal.The stick doesn't twist for the rudder,it just treats the trackball as it,unless you have a game specificallydesigned to look for it,which this is not one of 'em.I don't think they actuallystarted adding supportfor the Panther XL andMicrosoft Flight Gamesuntil like \"Flight Simulator 2002\".You really want a HOTAS,hands on throttle.I completely forgotabout the throttle there.That's why my plane was going so slow,because you have thisdinky little throttle dial,and that's all.Another thing you can give a try thoughis this mouse emulation program here,which is from the Assassin 3D.So FPgaming put this together in '97.And this just lets you usethe trackball as a trackball.You know, like a roller ball mouse.And then these threebuttons here are your left,right and middle mouse buttons.It actually works pretty decentlyas a trackball mouse in Windows.The issue is, at leastfor me being right-handed,I prefer to use track ballswith my dominant hand.So everything being on the left hand hereis just kind of odd,especially due to the way the layout is,with all of the three buttonsright up directly above the ball.I prefer to, well, you know,have a trackball whereit's more thumb controlled,and then you have your buttons over here.You can't...I mean, I guess you could,if I brought it over here,but then I had the wholething sideways and...So yeah, in trackball modeI've ended up going for thistwo-handed kind of postureanytime I've used it,which is not what you're supposed to do.I mean, I guess you can, whatever.It's fine.Like I said, it's actually apretty decent trackball mouse.Really no complaints.Good quality sensor andeverything in there.So, it's just the shape and the layoutand the left-handednessand all of it really,except for the actual ballitself being pretty good.I just don't like it.As an actual trackball at least.On its own, there are somany better options for that.Really, the only otherthing to look at hereis the DOS support.I mean, you know, it'sshowing up under Windowsas a joystick, right?You'd think oh ,you canjust use it as a joystick.But, well, you will notget any joystick detected.Like, just as a standard gameport joystick with this going.Though you do have theoption to enable thisXL plus DOS joystick,and that will get it to work.But again, you're not gonna be able to usemost of what's on here,just the normal four buttonsand the stick itself.And I think maybe thethrottle, but that's it.'Cause that's what DOS games see.You know, if you really wantto play \"Commander Keen\"with the Panther, you can.Maybe it needs to be in twobutton firing or something.Eh, that's kind of working.Well anyway, not ideal for this either.Obviously.However, there is more toits DOS support than that.So if you go back tothis just regular XL modewithout the DOS detection being enabled,and then go into the control center again.You have your selection of DOS games here,and then more that you could downloadonline back in the day.And it came with \"RedneckRampage\" as a demo.But who wants to play that?Let's play \"Duke Nukem 3D\".And this is interesting.So, it has this game execution layer,you point it towards the game,kind like what we weredoing with \"Quake 2\",but with this though,you have to go into...Well, at least with Build Engine games,you have to go to notkeyboard and joystick,I thought it was that.No, it's keyboard and external.And then you do set up external,and point it towardsthis A-launch program.Yeah, it's right herein this Mad Catz folder,along with everything else.And you have all these INIfiles for the different games.And if you want, you can adjustthings individually here,if you decipher what these mean.A lot of these you controlin the control center here,and just change the inputs tothe different endgame actions.But if for instance,you want to make it sothat it's not inverted,you just change the zeroto one here, the P invert,looking up and down willfunction non-inverted.And you can launch it eitherthrough a custom shortcutor just clicking launch app,and that that A-launch ranin the background therereal quickly and...I don't think it really treats itspecifically as a joystick.You can't control it from here.You have to still use a keyboard, but-- \"Let's rock!\"- But yeah, from here,you pretty much get what youget with all the other games.Strafing and moving forwardand back with the joystick,and then looking around,sort of a mouse lookmode with the trackball,now not inverted.And yeah, it's independent ofmouse aiming being on or not.Like, it doesn't matter.This is not a mouse asthe game is seeing it.And the mouse is totallydisabled over here.It's just its own separateindependent type of controller.Whoops, got too close there.Oh, I'm still so not used tostrafing with the joystick.Ugh, the combination of playingso many joystick games back in the day,and using it to turn instead.And also just decadesof keyboard and mousing.So my hands are doing the opposite things.Whatever, I can still kill everythingwith a track ball.Eventually.Like, you know, themore I do mess with it,I can start to see the appeal,'cause you can like you whiparound real quick and...Yeah, it could make sense.You would just have toreally spend a lot of time.Ugh.I was almost gettingused to the inversion.Now the non inversion is messing me up.I'm just bad all around.Well, that's the Panther XL from Mad Catz.A device that is reallyactually not that bad,but I completely get whyit didn't take off exactly.And it's not somethingI'd want to use today,that's for sure.Yeah, that's about it forthe Mad Catz Panther XL.An amusing device indeed,that I'm on the edge of actually liking,but it kind of sucks.Okay, that's not really fair.It's just that for me personally,two and a half decades later,for all of my own preferencesand things that I'm used to,it doesn't work with my brain.Now don't get me wrong, Iactually quite enjoy trackballs,and I like flight sticks,as separate things.It's just anytime that I'veever used them in the past,and nowadays, you know,the joystick is gonna be usedwith my right hand, sure,but so is the trackball.So moving everything that Iwould normally do with a mouseover to my left hand asa right-handed person,it just doesn't work withwhat I want to do in games.It's just always with my right hand,whether or not the trackballis integrated into a laptop,an old laptop, or I'musing it with a desktopas a standalone peripheral.Or even with arcade games likemy \"Missile Command\" cabinet.Or anybody remember thearcade game \"The Grid\"?Yeah, that cabinet has apretty similar setup indeedwith the control panel.You got your joystick on the left though,and the trackball on the right,which in my opinion makes more sensefor at least what I'm used to.You know, even on a keyboard and mouse,I'm moving, strafing with the left hand,and aiming with my right,which is how it works on \"The Grid\",and is the exact opposite ofwhat it is on the Panther XL.So I think that I might actually preferthe separate standalone setup,where you just have thePanther or Assassin 3D thing.The trackball that you could plug into,or plug a joystick into that.And then I could swap them around,and maybe that would work better for me.But even then, I would stillbe stuck using a joystickfor first person games,which was not uncommon.And I mean, I even didthat in the 90s myself.But...It's just the keyboard is so much better,or even a little analog stick these days,in my opinion and experience or whatever.So, I have no doubt thatpeople loved this thingand really got very good at it,it just doesn't reallymake sense to me nowadays.But that does make it prime Oddware,and I'm really glad tohave found one of thesesome years back so we could experience it.And hey, if you did happen to haveone of these back in the day,or perhaps you still do forthe PC or the Dreamcast,let me know in the commentsyour thoughts on it,back then and now.Like I said, I can kindof understand the appealin late '97, '98,but less so a quarter of a century later.But hey, who knows?Either way, thank you very muchfor watching this episode of LGR.\n"