Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The History of the Game Controller

Posted by Zonk on from the buttons-and-knobs dept.

1up.com has up a feature going through the history of the game controller. Starting in the dark ages of the PDP-1, the article moves all the way up to Nintendo's mysterious Revolution controller. From the article: "And when will Nintendo tip its hand? All we know at this point is that the Revolution will be backwards compatible with GameCube controllers, so at the very least the system will support all the functionality you're used to. But apart from that, will the controller feature a built-in touch screen and microphone, like the Nintendo DS? Is it just a box of brain-wave-reading goo? One thing is for sure: if history is any indication, there's no telling what the game controller we use twenty years from now will look like. And just as long as there's no numeric keypad, we should be okay."

4 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Am I the only one... by game+kid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...who noticed the "original Sega Saturn pad" has the Playstation logo? (Here's what seems to be the actual one.)

    --
    You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
  2. Spice tins by fm6 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Those guys at MIT always had way too much money to spend on hardware. That's why EMACS is so much more complicated than Vi -- it was originally designed to work on a very expensive terminal, whereas Vi was designed for a cheap "dumb terminal".

    When the MIT guys were doing that fancy Spacewar controller, less well-financed colleges were making them out of spice tins. Poke a couple holes for a rheostat and a trigger button, and voila! That was the first game controller I ever saw.

  3. The Revolution by Iscariot_ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think we are about to get a great controller upgrade from Nintendo (once again). They recently bought these guys: http://www.gyration.com/ . This could also explain why Nintendo said that twilight princess was the last of "this type" of Zelda game. I expect the next one to actually let you swing the controller to swing your sword.

    Kinda neet:
    http://www.gyration.com/files/demos/Remote_web_Ger man.wmv">http://www.gyration.com/files/demos/Remot e_web_German.wmv

    --

    Go here for teh [sic] funny.
  4. The proud history of the numeric keypad by Webmonger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This article's gripe about numeric keypads on console controllers is reasonable, I guess. But the keypad has done much good service as a video game controller.

    Back in the days when PC XTs roamed the earth, the numeric keypad, in its arrow-key form, was the standard way to control direction using a keyboard.

    The 'wasd' layout for directions came much later, around the time of first-person shooters. I don't remember whether it was Doom or Quake.