My favourite gadget of the moment is the Stinger by Gravis. The Stinger is for all those with laptops who have grappled in frustration to get a game pad or joystick connected to their laptop through a PCMCIA card.

The Stinger, which I bought for $40 ($70 in Bermuda), bills itself as the first and only game pad designed for laptops. It is digital, programmable and connects into the serial port -- the one you use to attach a mouse to your laptop if you so desire.

What's more, it works without any hassle once you've put in the software. I've since ditched my useless card -- which I've never been able to get to work properly with the regular game pad connection.

The Stinger has ten programmable buttons and can work as a game pad, joystick or mouse. The gamepad measures five inches wide and four inches deep and is flat, good enough to stick in a laptop bag.

The Stinger, however, doesn't function as well as it should as a joystick and needs a light touch. I barely managed to get a plane off the flight deck on my first few tries. And if you have big hands you'll probably get even more frustrated. But if you're a mobile worker and need some time off it's a handy carry on the next time you travel.

The product fills a niche that had not been addressed by the market. Expect updates soon to make the product better. Check out the Stinger at www.gravis.com/products. Reviews can be found at www.intelligamer.com/hardware/s tinger. For reviews on the top joysticks and game pads go to www.gamestuff.com/1998TopTenControllers.htm.

IBM has churned out a microdrive, what it calls the smallest and lightest hard disk yet. The hard disk weights 20 grams, about the same as a floppy disk and about the size of a large stamp 42.8 X 36.4X5 mm. The microdrive has a capacity of 170 or 340 Mb depending on whether it has one or two dataheads on its single platter. The drive fits into a Type II CompactFlash Type II slot and is backwards compatible with Type I.

Digital Cameras with CompactFlash cards and adapters for card slots and lots of pictures to shoot -- and I mean lots -- will find the microdrive useful.

The usual CompactFlash card comes in eight, 10 or 12 Mb.

IBM has also come up with the Thinkpad 570, a new laptop released last month in the ultraportable category. IBM calls the Thinkpad 570 a transformer, after the cartoon series about robots with the ability to change shapes.

The new laptop is deceptive at first. It looks like a regular notebook, two inches thick and weighing 6.8 pounds. A floppy drive, a CD-ROM drive,and room for two batteries make up the whole machine. But to get away from the weight, the user pushes a button in the front and the Thinkpad 570 jettisons the drives and emerges as a four-pound one-inch thick laptop.

IBM's price for the cheapest 570 configuration is $2,700 in the US for the notebook, a 300-megahertz Pentium II processor and a 12.1-inch screen. The high end version sells for $3,600 with a 13.3 inch screen and a 366-megahertz processor. The ultrabase unit, which detaches, sells for an addition $119, and the CD-ROM will cost $135.

Wild ride of the week: Inventor Neil Harrap is one heck of a thrill seeker.

He's put together Fly by Wire, an amusement park ride that combines bungee-jumping with trapeze and aircraft flight. The machine, which is a missile-sized plane in which the victim lies down inside flat on his stomach, is currently strung up across a valley in Queenstown, New Zealand. The one-man craft swings through the air at the end of a tethered cable at speeds up to 120 miles an hour. The person inside controls the steering and acceleration, according to the New York Times.

The craft has a five-bladed propeller at the rear and a four stroke aircraft engine. The rider gets in, is winched up to the desired height, then let go.

The pilot can do figure-eights, loops, arcs or wild swings. A six-minute ride costs $70. Mr. Harrap plans on installing one in the US soon and is currently scouting locations. Check out www.flybywire.co.nz to see how the machine works.

Tech Tattle is about technology. Contact Ahmed at 295-5881 ext. 248, or 238-3854, or techtattle ygazette.newsmedia.bm