The first controller on a home video game console was the knobs that came on the Magnavox Odyssey, Atari Pong consoles and clones. The Odyssey had two knobs on a box when used with its ping pong game. One to move your paddle vertically, one to nove it horizontally or add "english" or "spin" on the ball/brick. The Pong consoles tended to simplify this by only using one knob.
These knobs or paddle controllers were really potentiometers, variable resistors with a plastic knob on them for slightly more ergonomic control. The level of resistance affected the amount of time it took for a capacitor to discharge, and by measuring the time it took for a capacitor to discharge, the program could determine the location of a paddle on the screen.
Paddle controllers provide a much smoother control scheme for a paddle-type game such as Pong or Breakout or one of their clones. It is easier to accelerate and position the on-screen paddle with a hardware paddle controller. However, paddles generally have an approximate 270 degree range of motion, and the actual degrees in which the on-screen paddle will respond to motion from the controller is generally far less. Paddles are also very limited in the types of games they can control well and generally limited to the above mentioned styles of games.
When Atari released its Video Computer System in 1977, (which in 1982 would be rechristened the 2600), it offered two joystick and two paddle controllers in the box with the system. The Atari joystick was an 8-way controller with one joystick button. Each cardinal direction and button were a switch, the state of which could be read by the system to determine whether that direction or button was being pressed. The joystick interface, sometimes with a second button, was seen in many other home video game systems and computers.
Atari's joysticks were large enough to comfortably hold in your hands and simple enough for the game player of the time to get into the action quickly. Atari had the good sense not to build the joysticks into the console or hardwire them in. However, instead of putting the controller ports at the front of the machine, they put them in the back. Not only does this make for unsightly cable clutter, but it also cuts down on cord length. Also, the cord lengths of the VCS are rather short, 3' I think. In many cases, unless you were willing to get up close and personal, you pulled the VCS away from the TV to play. (The A/V cable was generous in length.)
The real problem for the digital Atari joysticks is that they just did not work terribly well with just about anything. There is little sensitivity in the Atari joystick. Being a digital device, there is no input being generated between the center position and the direction position. The "throw" of the joystick was extremely short, a nudge of the wrist would suffice to register a direction. The contact made when the joystick actually reaches a direction is not incredibly obvious, especially after Atari redesigned their joysticks (CX-10) to eliminate the springs above each directional switch (CX-40). The joystick lacked precise control, which often times meant the difference between death and scoring.
Atari's competitors did not fare much better. The Intellivision had a 16-way disc for a control, and it is even more imprecise than the Atari joystick. It also had a numeric keypad and multiple side action buttons. Colecovision's controller ditched the 16-way control for a standard 8-way control with a joydisk but copied the keypad and side action buttons. The joydisk was too big for a thumb but too small for the hand, so it was usually controlled with thumb and forefinger. The Atari 5200's controller had a numeric keypad, side buttons and an analog joystick.
The analog joysticks of the early 1980s were simply mechanisms to adjust two potentiometers. In short, they were two paddles, one for the horizontal and one for the vertical controlled by one stick. In addition to the Atart 5200, analog joysticks were also used in the Vectrex, Apple II and IBM PC computers. These joysticks tended to be fragile due to the mechanism and have sticks too small for the whole hand. In flight simulator games, they were far superior to any digital controller. However, most of the games of the early 1980s were less ambitious, generally one-screen games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders where fast response time was more critical than precision movement.
One final control method were those that used optical technology to sense direction. Atari's Driving Controller, released with Indy 500 as a VCS launch title, used a rotary stick to allow for an unlimited 360 degrees of movement. Breakout, Tempest and other arcade games using a paddle used rotary controllers instead potentiometers. Rotary controllers did not feature the dead zones of potentiometers, were faster to move and allowed for unlimited turning. Arcade games like Missile Command and Centipede used a trackball for more precise, anywhere-on-the-screen movement. Unfortunately, the trackball never really found support in the home video games. The internal operation of a driving controller and a trackball are virtually the same as a ball mouse, they move a rotating disc with holes past optical sensors that signal input when the holes pass through them.
That was the state of home video game control before the NES. The NES controller offered nothing new in terms of hardware design. Its buttons and directional pad were wholly digital. But the sum of the presentation was wholly unique:
1. The Right Size
A NES controller could rest comfortably in the palms of an average person's hands. All the buttons were located on the face of the controller, no awkward side buttons to press.
2. The Right Length
The NES controller came with a 6' cable cord and connected to the front of the unit. This was much appreciated by parents who did not want to see a lot of clutter around the living room TV. The controllers were freely detachable, which made it easy to use other types of peripherals like the Power Pad and Zapper Light Gun. The Intellivision, Colecovision and 5200 were all huge because they included storage for their controllers, the NES did not, making it a far slimmer console.
3. The Right Form Factor
The NES controller is horizontally oriented. Normally, the player's hands are side-by-side, which is a more comfortable placement than the prior controllers, which forced the player to have one hand underneath the other.
4. Select and Start
An overlooked feature is that the buttons to start a game and select the game options are on the controller, not on the console. A player did not have to get up and flick a switch to start a new game or select a variation as on the Atari. The player could also conveniently pause the game using the start button, which while not new, was a very appreciated feature.
5. Two Action Buttons
The Atari 2600 had only one action button. This limitation found itself into its 8-bit computers as well as Commodore's. Many games suffered from the lack of buttons. Nintendo set the standard of two action buttons. While this was not new, their placement was. Nintendo placed its action buttons so they could be controlled by the player's right thumb. The brain can manipulate the thumb faster over these buttons than it could fingers. The thumb has two points of contact, the tip and the joint. Thus the player could hit both buttons at the same time or alternate the buttons with each part of his thumb.
6. The Directional Pad
The most important innovation of the controller was the D-Pad. The D-Pad allowed for far more precise control in 2D games than any joystick. The D-Pad was a good size, large enough that each direction could be pressed distinctly but small enough that the thumb could get to any direction quickly. The D-Pad was first introduced in Nintendo's Game and Watch series, but with the NES, Nintendo had set the standard for directional control for a decade.
One note to end this post. Sega's gamepads for the Master System and the Genesis work perfectly with VCS/2600 that buse a joystick. Plug one in and enjoy the more precise control. It may be had to go back to the traditional stick. Atari even made a D-Pad controller for the 7800 when it sold it overseas. Try one of those if you want to be a bit more traditional.
0 comments:
Post a Comment