A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Also known as the control column, it is the principal control device in the cockpit of many civilian and military aircraft, either as a centre stick or side-stick. It has various switches to control functions of the aircraft controlled by the Pilot and First Officer of the flight.
Joysticks are often used to control video games, and usually have push-buttons whose state can be read by the computer. A popular variation of the joystick used on modern video game consoles is the analog stick. Joysticks are also used for controlling machines such as cranes, trucks, underwater unmanned vehicles, wheelchairs, surveillance cameras, and zero turning radius lawn mowers. Miniature finger-operated joysticks have been adopted as input devices for smaller electronic equipment such as mobile phones.
Joysticks originated as controls for aircraft ailerons and elevators, and are first known to have been used as such on Louis Bleriot's Bleriot VIII aircraft of 1908, in combination with a foot-operated rudder bar for the yaw control surface on the tail. [1]
The name joystick is thought to originate with early 20th century French pilot Robert Esnault-Pelterie. [2] There are also competing claims on behalf of fellow pilots Robert Loraine, James Henry Joyce, and A. E. George. Loraine is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary for using the term "joystick" in his diary in 1909 when he went to Pau to learn to fly at Blériot's school. George was a pioneer aviator who with his colleague Jobling built and flew a biplane at Newcastle in England in 1910. The George and Jobling aircraft control column is in the collection of the Discovery Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Joysticks were present in early planes, though their mechanical origins are uncertain. [3] The coining of the term "joystick" may actually be credited to Loraine, as his is the earliest known usage of the term, although he most certainly did not invent the device.
The electrical two-axis joystick was invented by C. B. Mirick at the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and patented in 1926 (U.S. Patent no. 1,597,416)". [4] NRL was actively developing remote controlled aircraft at the time and the joystick was possibly used to support this effort. In the awarded patent, Mirick writes: "My control system is particularly applicable in maneuvering aircraft without a pilot." [5]
The Germans developed an electrical two-axis joystick around 1944. The device was used as part of the Germans' Funkgerät FuG 203 Kehl radio control transmitter system used in certain German bomber aircraft, used to guide both the rocket-boosted anti-ship missile Henschel Hs 293 , and the unpowered pioneering precision-guided munition Fritz-X , [6] against maritime and other targets. Here, the joystick of the Kehl transmitter was used by an operator to steer the missile towards its target. This joystick had on-off switches rather than analogue sensors. Both the Hs 293 and Fritz-X used FuG 230 Straßburg radio receivers in them to send the Kehl's control signals to the ordnance's control surfaces. A comparable joystick unit was used for the contemporary American Azon steerable munition, strictly to laterally steer the munition in the yaw axis only. [7]
This German invention was picked up by someone in the team of scientists assembled at the Heeresversuchsanstalt in Peenemünde. Here a part of the team on the German rocket program was developing the Wasserfall missile, a variant of the V-2 rocket, the first ground-to-air missile. The Wasserfall steering equipment converted the electrical signal to radio signals and transmitted these to the missile.
In the 1960s the use of joysticks became widespread in radio-controlled model aircraft systems such as the Kwik Fly produced by Phill Kraft (1964). The now-defunct Kraft Systems firm eventually became an important OEM supplier of joysticks to the computer industry and other users. The first use of joysticks outside the radio-controlled aircraft industry may have been in the control of powered wheelchairs, such as the Permobil (1963). During this time period NASA used joysticks as control devices as part of the Apollo missions. For example, the lunar lander test models were controlled with a joystick.
In many modern airliners, for example all Airbus aircraft developed from the 1980s, the joystick has received a new lease on life for flight control in the form of the "side-stick," a controller similar to a gaming joystick but which is used to control flight, replacing the traditional yoke. The sidestick saves weight, improves movement and visibility in the cockpit, and may be safer in an accident than the yoke.
Ralph H. Baer, inventor of the Magnavox Odyssey console, released in 1972, created the first video game joysticks in 1967. They were able to control the horizontal and vertical position of a spot displayed on a screen. [8] The earliest known electronic game joystick with a fire button was released by Sega as part of their 1969 arcade game Missile , a shooter simulation game that used it as part of an early dual-control scheme, where two directional buttons are used to move a motorized tank and a two-way joystick is used to shoot and steer the missile onto oncoming planes displayed on the screen; when a plane is hit, an explosion is animated on screen along with an explosion sound. [9] In 1970, [10] the game was released in North America as S.A.M.I. by Midway Games. [9]
Taito released a four-way joystick as part of their arcade racing video game Astro Race in 1973, [11] while their 1975 multidirectional shooter Western Gun introduced dual-stick controls with one eight-way joystick for movement and the other for changing the shooting direction. In North America, it was released by Midway under the title Gun Fight . [12] In 1976, Taito released Interceptor , an early first-person combat flight simulator that involved piloting a jet fighter, using an eight-way joystick to aim with a crosshair and shoot at enemy aircraft. [13]
The Atari CX40 joystick, developed for the 1977 Atari Video Computer System, [15] is a digital controller with a single fire button. The Atari joystick port was for many years the de facto standard digital joystick specification. Joysticks were commonly used as controllers in first and second generation game consoles, but they gave way to the familiar game pad with the Nintendo Entertainment System and Master System during the mid-1980s, though joysticks—especially arcade-style ones—were and are popular after-market add-ons for any console. [16]
In 1985, Sega's third-person arcade rail shooter game Space Harrier featured a true analog flight stick, used for movement. The joystick could register movement in any direction as well as measure the degree of push, which could move the player character at different speeds depending on how far the joystick was pushed in a certain direction. [17]
A variation of the joystick is the rotary joystick. It is a type of joystick-knob hybrid, where the joystick can be moved in various direction while at the same time being able to rotate the joystick. It is mainly used in arcade shoot 'em up games, to control both the player's eight-directional movement and the gun's 360-degree direction. [18] [19] It was introduced by SNK, initially with the tank shooter TNK III (1985) before it was popularized by the run and gun video game Ikari Warriors (1986). [18] SNK later used rotary joystick controls in arcade games such as Guerrilla War (1987). [20]
A distinct variation of an analog joystick is a positional gun, which works differently from a light gun. Instead of using light sensors, a positional gun is essentially an analog joystick mounted in a fixed location that records the position of the gun to determine where the player is aiming on the screen. [21] [22] It is often used for arcade gun games, with early examples including Sega's Sea Devil in 1972; [23] Taito's Attack in 1976; [24] Cross Fire in 1977; [25] and Nintendo's Battle Shark in 1978. [26]
During the 1990s, joysticks such as the CH Products Flightstick, Gravis Phoenix, Microsoft SideWinder, Logitech WingMan, and Thrustmaster FCS were in demand with PC gamers. They were considered a prerequisite for flight simulators such as F-16 Fighting Falcon and LHX Attack Chopper . Joysticks became especially popular with the mainstream success of space flight simulator games like X-Wing and Wing Commander , as well as the "Six degrees of freedom" 3D shooter Descent . [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] VirPil Controls' MongoosT-50 joystick was designed to mimic the style of Russian aircraft (including the Sukhoi Su-35 and Sukhoi Su-57), unlike most flight joysticks. [32]
However, since the beginning of the 21st century, these types of games have waned in popularity and are now considered a "dead" genre, and with that, gaming joysticks have been reduced to niche products. [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] In NowGamer's interview with Jim Boone, a producer at Volition Inc., he stated that FreeSpace 2 's poor sales could have been due to joysticks' being sold poorly because they were "going out of fashion" because more modern first-person shooters, such as Quake , were "very much about the mouse and [the] keyboard". He went further on to state "Before that, when we did Descent for example, it was perfectly common for people to have joysticks – we sold a lot of copies of Descent. It was around that time [when] the more modern FPS with mouse and keyboard came out, as opposed to just keyboard like Wolfenstein [3D] or something.". [33]
Since the late 1990s, analog sticks (or thumbsticks, due to their being controlled by one's thumbs) have become standard on controllers for video game consoles, popularized by Nintendo's Nintendo 64 controller, [34] and have the ability to indicate the stick's displacement from its neutral position. This means that the software does not have to keep track of the position or estimate the speed at which the controls are moved. These devices usually use potentiometers to determine the position of the stick, [35] though some newer models instead use a Hall effect sensor for greater reliability and reduced size.
In 1997, ThrustMaster, Inc. introduced a 3D programmable controller, which was integrated into computer games to experience flight simulations. This line adapted several aspects of NASA's RHC (Rotational Hand Controller), which is used for landing and navigation methods. [36]
In 1997 the first gaming joystick with force feedback (haptics) was manufactured by CH Products under license from technology creator, Immersion Corporation. [37] The product, called the Force FX joystick was followed by force feedback joysticks from Logitech, Thrustmaster, and others, also under license from Immersion. [38] [39]
An arcade stick is a large-format controller for use with home consoles or computers. They use the stick-and-button configuration of some arcade cabinets, such as those with particular multi-button arrangements. For example, the six button layout of the arcade games Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat cannot be comfortably emulated on a console joypad, so licensed home arcade sticks for these games have been manufactured for home consoles and PCs. [40]
A hat switch is a control on some joysticks. It is also known as a POV (point of view) switch in electronic games, where it allows one to look around in one's virtual world, browse menus, etc. For example, many flight simulators use it to switch the player's views, [41] while other games sometimes use it as a substitute for the D-pad. Computer gamepads with both an analogue stick and a D-pad usually assign POV switch scancodes to the latter.
The term hat switch is a shortening of the term "coolie hat switch," named for the similar looking headgear. [42]
In a real aircraft, the hat switch may control things like aileron or elevator trim.
Apart from buttons, wheels and dials as well as touchscreens also miniature joysticks have been established for the efficient manual operation of cameras. [43] [44] [45]
In recent times, the employment of joysticks has become commonplace in many industrial and manufacturing applications, such as cranes, assembly lines, forestry equipment, mining trucks, and excavators. In fact, the use of such joysticks is in such high demand, that it has virtually replaced the traditional mechanical control lever in nearly all modern hydraulic control systems. Additionally, most unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and submersible remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) require at least one joystick to control either the vehicle, the on-board cameras, sensors and/or manipulators.
Due to the highly hands-on, rough nature of such applications, the industrial joystick tends to be more robust than the typical video-game controller, and able to function over a high cycle life. This led to the development and employment of Hall effect sensing to such applications in the 1980s as a means of contactless sensing. Several companies produce joysticks for industrial applications using Hall effect technology. Another technology used in joystick design is the use of strain gauges to build force transducers from which the output is proportional to the force applied rather than physical deflection. Miniature force transducers are used as additional controls on joysticks for menu selection functions.
Some larger manufacturers of joysticks are able to customize joystick handles and grips specific to the OEM needs while small regional manufacturers often concentrate on selling standard products at higher prices to smaller OEMs.
Specialist joysticks, classed as an assistive technology pointing device, are used to replace the computer mouse for people with fairly severe physical disabilities. Rather than controlling games, these joysticks control the pointer. They are often useful to people with athetoid conditions, such as cerebral palsy, who find them easier to grasp than a standard mouse. [46] Miniature joysticks are available for people with conditions involving muscular weakness such as muscular dystrophy or motor neurone disease as well. They are also used on electric powered wheelchairs for control since they are simple and effective to use as a control method. [47]
In 1996, a scientific study established that both chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys could be taught to move a pointer on a screen by using a joystick. Both have consistently managed to demonstrate "conceptual knowledge" of the task required of them during trials, although rhesus monkeys were notably slower to do so. [49]
In 2021, another pair of researchers investigated the level of intelligence in domestic pigs by designing a joystick which could be controlled with their snout. Unlike the chimpanzees or the rhesus monkeys, none of the four pigs was able to fully meet the 1996's test criteria for "motoric or conceptual acquisition" of the task, but they still performed "significantly above chance". Notably, the pigs experienced additional difficulties in comparison to the primates, as they were all far-sighted and so may have struggled with the details on screen, and they could not move the target with a joystick without taking their eyes off the screen first. [48]
A light gun is a pointing device for computers and a control device for arcade and video games, typically shaped to resemble a pistol.
A game controller, gaming controller, or simply controller, is an input device or input/output device used with video games or entertainment systems to provide input to a video game. Input devices that have been classified as game controllers include keyboards, mice, gamepads, and joysticks, as well as special purpose devices, such as steering wheels for driving games and light guns for shooting games. Controllers designs have evolved to include directional pads, multiple buttons, analog sticks, joysticks, motion detection, touch screens and a plethora of other features.
After Burner is a rail shooter arcade video game developed and released by Sega in 1987. The player controls an American F-14 Tomcat fighter jet and must clear each of the game's eighteen unique stages by destroying incoming enemies. The plane is equipped with a machine gun and a limited supply of heat-seeking missiles. The game uses a third-person perspective, as in Sega's earlier Space Harrier (1985) and Out Run (1986). It runs on the Sega X Board arcade system which is capable of surface and sprite rotation. It is the fourth Sega game to use a hydraulic "taikan" motion simulator arcade cabinet, one that is more elaborate than their earlier "taikan" simulator games. The cabinet simulates an aircraft cockpit, with flight stick controls, a chair with seatbelt, and hydraulic motion technology that moves, tilts, rolls and rotates the cockpit in sync with the on-screen action.
A gamepad is a type of video game controller held in two hands, where the fingers are used to provide input. They are typically the main input device for video game consoles.
Free look describes the ability to move a mouse, joystick, analogue stick, or D-pad to rotate the player character's view in video games. It is almost always used for 3D game engines, and has been included on role-playing video games, real-time strategy games, third-person shooters, first-person shooters, racing games, and flight simulators. Free look is nearly universal in modern games, but it was one of the significant technical breakthroughs of mid-1990s first-person perspective games. Many modern console games dedicate one of the several analogue sticks on the gamepad entirely to rotating the view, where as some older console games, when gamepads usually had fewer or only a single D-pad or analogue stick, had a feature where the single D-pad or analogue stick would move the view instead of the character whilst the player held down another button at the same time, often labelled in game as the "look button".
An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade machine or a coin-op cabinet or coin-op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement Machine Manufacturers Association (JAMMA) wiring standard. Some include additional connectors for features not included in the standard.
A D-pad, known as a +Control Pad in Nintendo terminology, is a flat, typically thumb-operated, directional controller. D-pads are found on nearly all modern gamepads, handheld game consoles, and audiovisual device remote controls. Because they operate using four internal push-buttons, the vast majority of D-pads provide discrete, rather than continuous, directional options—typically limited to up, down, left, and right, and sometimes offering intermediate diagonals by means of two-button combinations.
An analog stick, also known as control stick, joystick or thumbstick, is an input device for a controller that is used for two-dimensional input. An analog stick is a variation of a joystick, consisting of a protrusion from the controller; input is based on the position of this protrusion in relation to the default "center" position. While digital sticks rely on single electrical connections for movement, analog sticks use continuous electrical activity running through potentiometers to measure the exact position of the stick within its full range of motion. The analog stick has greatly overtaken the D-pad in both prominence and usage in console video games.
An electronic game is a game that uses electronics to create an interactive system with which a player can play. Video games are the most common form today, and for this reason the two terms are often used interchangeably. There are other common forms of electronic games, including handheld electronic games, standalone arcade game systems, and exclusively non-visual products.
Combat flight simulators are vehicle simulation games, amateur flight simulation computer programs used to simulate military aircraft and their operations. These are distinct from dedicated flight simulators used for professional pilot and military flight training which consist of realistic physical recreations of the actual aircraft cockpit, often with a full-motion platform.
Assault is a 1988 multi-directional shooter arcade game developed and published by Namco. It was licensed to Atari Games for release in North America. Controlling a caterpillar-tread self-propelled gun, the player is tasked with completing each of the game's eleven stages while shooting enemies and avoiding projectiles. It uses a twin-stick control layout, similar to games such as Battlezone. The plot involves the human race searching for new planets after Earth reaches its maximum population - after discovering an exo-planet 35,000 light years away from the Milky Way, they enslave the planet's natives and take control, leading to the planet's native population vowing to abolish the humans and bring peace to their world. The protagonist who rides the aforementioned self-propelled gun which players control, is one such native.
Forgotten Worlds, titled Lost Worlds in Japan, is a side-scrolling shooter video game by Capcom, originally released as a coin-operated arcade game in 1988. It is notable for being the first title released by Capcom for their CP System arcade game hardware.
The Nintendo 64 controller is the standard game controller for the Nintendo 64 home video game console. It was first manufactured and released by Nintendo on June 23, 1996, in Japan; in September 29, 1996, in North America; and March 1, 1997, in Europe. It is the successor to the Super Nintendo controller and is designed in an "M" shape and features 10 buttons, a "Control Stick", and a D-pad.
In computing, a motion controller is a type of input device that uses accelerometers, gyroscopes, cameras, or other sensors to track motion.
In video games, first-person is any graphical perspective rendered from the viewpoint of the player character, or from the inside of a device or vehicle controlled by the player character. It is one of two perspectives used in the vast majority of video games, with the other being third-person, the graphical perspective from outside of any character ; some games such as interactive fiction do not belong to either format.
Light-gun shooter, also called light-gun game or simply gun game, is a shooter video game genre in which the primary design element is to simulate a shooting gallery by having the player aiming and discharging a gun-shaped controller at a screen. Light-gun shooters revolve around the protagonist shooting virtual targets, either antagonists or inanimate objects, and generally feature action or horror themes and some may employ a humorous, parodic treatment of these conventions. These games typically feature "on-rails" movement, which gives the player control only over aiming; the protagonist's other movements are determined by the game. Games featuring this device are sometimes termed "rail shooters", though this term is also applied to games of other genres in which "on-rails" movement is a feature. Some, particularly later, games give the player greater control over movement and in still others the protagonist does not move at all. On home computer conversions of light-gun shooters, mouse has been often an optional or non-optional replacement for a light gun.
A flight simulation video game refers to the simulation of various aspects of flight or the flight environment for purposes other than flight training or aircraft development. A significant community of simulation enthusiasts is supported by several commercial software packages, as well as commercial and homebuilt hardware. Open-source software that is used by the aerospace industry like FlightGear, whose flight dynamics engine (JSBSim) is used in a 2015 NASA benchmark to judge new simulation code to space industry standards, is also available for private use. A popular type of flight simulators video games are combat flight simulators, which simulate combat air operations from the pilot and crew's point of view. Combat flight simulation titles are more numerous than civilian flight simulators due to variety of subject matter available and market demand.
Electro-mechanical games are types of arcade games that operate on a combination of some electronic circuitry and mechanical actions from the player to move items contained within the game's cabinet. Some of these were early light gun games using light-sensitive sensors on targets to register hits, while others were simulation games such as driving games, combat flight simulators and sports games. EM games were popular in amusement arcades from the late 1940s up until the 1970s, serving as alternatives to pinball machines, which had been stigmatized as games of chance during that period. EM games lost popularity in the 1970s, as arcade video games had emerged to replace them in addition to newer pinball machines designed as games of skill.
The Atari joystick port is a computer port used to connect various gaming controllers to game console and home computer systems in the 1970s to the 1990s. It was originally introduced on the Atari 2600 in 1977 and then used on the Atari 400 and 800 in 1979. It went cross-platform with the VIC-20 in 1981, and was then used on many following machines from both companies, as well as a growing list of 3rd party machines like the MSX platform and various Sega consoles.
Twin-stick shooter is a subgenre of shoot 'em up video games. It is a multidirectional shooter in which the player character is controlled using two joysticks: the first for movement on a flat plane and the second to shoot in the direction the joystick is pushed. Usually shots are fired as soon as the second joystick is moved, but in some games there is an additional button which must be held. Keyboard and mouse or touch input may supplant one or both joysticks. A few games, such as 1981's Vanguard, don't have a second joystick for shooting, but provide four buttons arranged in a diamond to fire in the cardinal directions.
Light guns, such as the NES Zapper or those used in the House of the Dead series, are distinctly different from positional guns used by arcade games such as SEGA's Gunblade NY. ... Light guns differ from positional guns, such as in Gunblade NY (bottom), that are essentially analog joysticks. ... Positional guns are essentially analog sticks mounted in a fixed location with respect to the screen. Light guns, in contrast, have no fixed a priori relationship with a display.
The two routes to conventional gun control are light guns and positional guns. Light guns are the most common for video game systems of any type. They work optically with screen and do not keep track of location on the screen until the gun is fired. When the gun is fired, the screen blanks for a moment, and the optics in the gun register where on the screen the gun is aimed. That information is sent to the computer, which registers the shot. ... Positional guns are mounted stationary on the arcade cabinet with the ability to aim left/right and up/down. They function much like joysticks, which maintain a known location on screen at all times and register the current location when fired.
Unlike most flight sticks for sale on the US market, which tend to be based with varying levels of verisimilitude on US fighter aircraft control columns, the MongoosT-50 is built to mirror the control stick on Russian aircraft—specifically, the fifth-generation Russian Sukhoi Su-35 and PAK FA (T-50).