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Evolution of Video Game Controllers
Ant writes "This Revolution Advanced article takes a look at the evolution of controllers from the days of Atari 2600 to Nintendo Revolution." Tragically the Intellivision controller is missing. But oh the nostalgia.
I've played lots of gaming platforms and I have to say that, I perfer the original Nintendo controller it was very simple to use, almost an extension of my body while I as playing very little thought had to be done reguarding what buttons to push, also it had alot of control. nowadays you have 1 joy stick that control the camera view and another that control the direction your character is heading, then you have and about 8 - 12 more button for more control but you have to consentrate more on what button you pushing... a big differant from the day is arrow keys, start select, and those great A and B buttons
There are many systems' controllers missing from that list; no Colecovision, Jaquar, Tubografx 16, or any handheld.
For something that talks about the "evolution" of controllers, they could of at least listed paddles and light guns; two staples of controllers from yesteryear.
This isn't complete by a long shot and it certainly isn't front page worthy.
Indeed they were.
Because they were Intelligently Designed, you see features appearing de novo with no ancestral features.
If controllers had evolved by natural selection, you'd expect to see incremental change in features that indicated common ancestry.
Ramen.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
This article could have been slapped together in a day. "The joystick only had eight directions, so in technicality [sic] it wasnt an analog joystick." Yes-- because it was a DIGITAL joystick as the author pointed out earlier! Then he says the 5200 joystick had 360 degrees of motion! So did the 2600, it just output in only eight directions by using four switches. The 5200 joystick may have been a 16-direction model, at best, but it certainly was not a 360. And the NES controller was also 8-way, not 4-way as described in the model or diagonal movement would have been impossible. Overall, the level of writing in this article is childish and chaotic.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I can't say much about the article, do to a slashdotting. I will take this opportunity to spot off on how much I really think thumbpads are a step backwards from the joystick. I pretty much stop playing console games once the Nintendo became king, because I found the gamepad so frustratingly hard to control. You might think is was lack of experience. However, once computer games came along, I picked up controlling with a keyboard (or the keyboard mouse combination) just fine.
Of course this is just one person's view, and commercial success has proved me wrong. I'm sure many people like the thumbpad controllers better, but I'm not one of them (and I'm not sure I understand why). I will point out that thumbpad controllers do have some pratical advantages. They are certainly cheaper and more compact.
Under the Atari 2600 section: Lastly with all the problems that plagued the controller, the absence of a pause button only made it worse, when the joystick stopped working, you couldnt even pause the game.
WHAT pause button? As I recall, there was no pause button on the console either. Good grief - we're talking about a 2600 here. There was no pausing PERIOD back then.
Its a shame that fact checking is SOOOO expensive these days.