Digital Joysticks provide better control than Analog Joysticks

[atariksi]

In the context of pure analog (no internal ADC/polling -let alone serial encoding hardware -usually an MCU), you could have a rather straightforward hack that made any switch-based digital joystick into an analog joystick using analog switches (more or less) and what effectively ammounts to a crude, low resolution DAC with a few resistors.

In the context of the 8A/5200/VCS, it would make sense to modify a VCS stick to output the 8 directions as 8 different analog states (or rather 2 states -plus neutral- on 2 axes), and there are also schematics for external adapters out there, but it's simpler in many ways to do it internally.

Just a couple resistors, a bit of soldering, and a few added wires (plus an appropriate cable/connector) and you're good to go.

Why would anyone want to use slower, inexact, longer throw analog joysticks for machines that already have something better. If you studied the VCS/A800 code, you have the capability to instantly read the joystick at any time anywhere. By going analog, you restrict to reading them during VBLanking (or some frame-based IRQ) and introduce the uncertainties and more complicated code. And the fast pot scan is even more erroneous than the frame-based analog readings. When the digital method exists, there's no reason to degrade to analog. In case of A5200, there's a very good reason to upgrade to digital joystick to get a better defined result for the 9-states although the interface is still analog.

 

Read it again: I wasn't suggesting long-throw or use of pots or other mechanisms for precise control (be it analog or digital), but a mehanism for a 9-state analog joystick with appearance and feel identical to the CX-40 (or better, CX-10), but being fully analog as such and functioning with the vectrex or 5200.

 

The mechanism is fully analog, using resistors tied to switches and wiring such that you have 3 states possible for the 2 analog leads (3 voltage levels: high, low, and neutral).

 

Thus, to the user, you can't tell the difference, but for the programmer/hardware you still have to account for the analogisity (for acceptable voltage ranges -and the corresponding digital output) and calibration at start up for establishing neutral.

 

There's no such thing as a digital joystick on the 5200 unless you have a game using the keypad for input and a hacked joystick outputting key presses. For normal games using analog control you can only use an analog (resistance based) controller, regardless of physical mechanism or throw (or whether you use paddles instead) including the use of analog switches pulling through resistors for very low precision analog. (only 3 general voltages per axis)

 

 

I'm just repeating what I said above though.

 

Your definition of what constitutes a digital joystick interface is different; that's the problem. If I hook up a VCS joystick to Atari 5200 using the analog pins, that's still a digital joystick interface. The major problems with analog joystick is the long throw and the uncertainties caused by thresholds. The human is interfacing with a digital joystick and the output is 9-states + fire button from the joystick. Even the Atari 5200 trackball is digital since it outputs deltas that later get encoded into the analog inputs. Although not as good as pure digital all the way, it still counts as a digital interface. The sampling rate is slower but that's less of an issue.

[potatohead]

Oh, so after all of that, it's just the joystick that's better??

 

Really, you just don't like the 5200 one. That's cool. I don't either, but good grief, that's one hell of a walk back!!

[kool kitty89]

Oh, so after all of that, it's just the joystick that's better??

 

Really, you just don't like the 5200 one. That's cool. I don't either, but good grief, that's one hell of a walk back!!

LOL, yeah after all my comments about purely digital joysticks with long throw and wide range (high precision) control, or even ones with long throw and only low precision (I believe the odyssey 2 is like that -long throw, spring centered, 9 state digital).

 

Let alone my comments about joystick implementation in general being a huge factor: ie functionality, form factor, reliability, etc. (general human interfacing issues not related to analog or digital control)

 

 

The 5200's buttons are too small, poorly placed, and tend to wear/stick, but that's a design/quality issue, not anything to do with the digital interfacing or polling mechanism. (if they were poorly made analog triggers, it would be problematic as well)

Let alone the numerous issues with the intellivision controller (all digital), or the colecovision controller. (reliable, good quality, but awkward knob only really comfortable as a thumbstick but useless as such when the buttons are needed: then the buttons are recessed and too small to be comfortable) The 7800 stick is too stiff and a tad bulky (for small hands), but at least it has good buttons and is fairly reliable. (Europe got that nice gamepad too)

[potatohead]

Might have to add, lower expectations and settle, hoping nobody notices to that list! I'll call it maneuver for false consensus, if I publish that again. A new one!! That makes me happy. Always fun to see a very clever person post up something new like that. (And wonttalktopotatoheadski, that's a compliment.)

 

The most likely scenario is to combine that with silence as quickly as possible, wait some time, then pull a chewy, pointing to the "validation", counting on the complexity being enough of a burden to keep the whole affair ambiguous. From there, just force of will would likely prevail, if ego needs to be stroked.

 

Yeah, the Odyessy 2 joysticks were kind of clunky, with little slots for the positions. Hated those things. Throw fairly long too, designed to hit those slots, never mind when a player just bumped into the space between them!

 

We need some UFO!! ports, done analog style. Hmmm, sounds like a project some day. Love that game.

 

You've made great posts on overall design. IMHO, it's the key element in this thing. Digital has it's limits state wise, but design is still just as important. In fact, I don't see a material difference, as noted above.

Edited December 12, 2010 by potatohead

[atariksi]

LOL, yeah after all my comments about purely digital joysticks with long throw and wide range (high precision) control, or even ones with long throw and only low precision (I believe the odyssey 2 is like that -long throw, spring centered, 9 state digital).

 

Let alone my comments about joystick implementation in general being a huge factor: ie functionality, form factor, reliability, etc. (general human interfacing issues not related to analog or digital control)

You speculate too much. Better to look around and see for yourself. The MasterPlay, Digital Joystick Adapter, etc. are digital joystick interfaces for the Atari 5200. They are not analog joysticks that you use with them nor are they called analog joystick interfaces. Human is thinking discrete motion and he interfaces with a digital joystick. It's not purely digital since the digital signals have to be converted to analog and back to digital and slow sampling rate, but still when I move right, I won't be producing a range of values from center to 228. Similarly for other directions. It makes a HUGE difference in the uncertainties that I talked about. And obviously, the throw is the same as digital joystick since it's the same joystick.

[potatohead]

So you are just going to ignore the little program I posted above that renders your point moot?

[bmcnett]

@potatohead did you mention a game project? I sometimes hanker to join one. never wrote asm for Atari but I shipped a few hundred thousand copies for game boy which is (unbelievably!) more primitive. I mean, hblank interrupts required to get an all points addressible display!

[bmcnett]

@atariksi IIRC you were using some kind of false color with alternating pixels of green only and red/blue only. 8 bit color planar formats only, various resolutions. Can you name the two animation formats I supported? I remember discussing these with you. I had been broadcasting news about your big video debut a week or two before it went live. People sure enjoyed seeing your live video after months of my canned animations. For many including me, it was the first live streaming network video they had ever seen in their life.

Edited December 12, 2010 by bmcnett

[atariksi]

LOL, yeah after all my comments about purely digital joysticks with long throw and wide range (high precision) control, or even ones with long throw and only low precision (I believe the odyssey 2 is like that -long throw, spring centered, 9 state digital).

 

Let alone my comments about joystick implementation in general being a huge factor: ie functionality, form factor, reliability, etc. (general human interfacing issues not related to analog or digital control)

You speculate too much. Better to look around and see for yourself. The MasterPlay, Digital Joystick Adapter, etc. are digital joystick interfaces for the Atari 5200. They are not analog joysticks that you use with them nor are they called analog joystick interfaces. Human is thinking discrete motion and he interfaces with a digital joystick. It's not purely digital since the digital signals have to be converted to analog and back to digital and slow sampling rate, but still when I move right, I won't be producing a range of values from center to 228. Similarly for other directions. It makes a HUGE difference in the uncertainties that I talked about. And obviously, the throw is the same as digital joystick since it's the same joystick.

 

And I'm not limiting to Atari 5200. The digital joysticks that use the POT lines on the Gameport with pull-up resistors are also digital joystick interfaces that are similar in nature although their sampling is inferior to Atari 5200 method.

[potatohead]

@bmcnett Sure would be fun. Might be possible for me next year. Got a coupla things I wouldn't mind working on. If something does start, I'll PM you. Gorf did some great looking work on UFO! for 7800 a while back. This thread just made me think of that game, plus some physics variations. What I liked about it on the Odyessy was the little shield recharge animation, and how the weapon direction was linked to motion. Was a interesting little dynamic, that ended up being something that forced some strategy when the action got intense.

 

So yeah, I hear you. Did that a while back on the VCS, and it was a lot of fun. I got that same itch...

[atariksi]

@atariksi IIRC you were using some kind of false color with alternating pixels of green only and red/blue only. 8 bit color planar formats only, various resolutions. Can you name the two animation formats I supported? I remember discussing these with you. I had been broadcasting news about your big video debut a week or two before it went live. People sure enjoyed seeing your live video after months of my canned animations. For many including me, it was the first live streaming network video they had ever seen in their life.

 

False color? As in opposed to True color?

 

Some monitors seem to merge those lines together like PAL TVs seems to merge alternating lines to it's not so bad and they don't call them "false" colors. Gray-scale weren't done that way obviously.

[ledzep]

(Since nobody else seemed to notice the major flaw in aprioriksi's "thinking"...)

 

You know what sounds familiar is you giving another excuse for not presenting your supposed data. You wouldn't want to present any data to anybody because you don't have any of it.

It's in front of your face. And it's megabytes of it. You don't need anymore to draw the conclusion which was also established logically/mathematically. One image is 640*480*24 bits is 900K and I gave you several images where there is high failure rate. That's megabytes of data. I have tons more but it's unnecessary to draw the conclusion.

 

Wait, so you're saying that the size of your worthless jpeg picture of a computer monitor showing a moment in a video game contributes to your claim of "megabytes" of data?!? Hahaaha, really? That's amazing! Why stop at 640x480x24 bits? You could have really solidified your position by taking your jpeg into Photoshop and upping the resolution! I mean if the image was increased in size to 1280x960x24 bits that would get you 4 times the amount of "data", man, that would be even better! Who could possibly deny your findings then?!?

 

Everybody. I commend your herculean efforts to simultaneously refuse to admit that you have no data and to prove that you have "megabytes" of it with that idiotic image size comment. Nice touch releasing your "data" in a format that some of us can't read instead of doing the correct thing and converting that data into easy-to-read graphs or tables. You have claimed to have "megabytes" of data from "hundreds" of experiments. Prove it.

 

Shitty try, there, and now you claim again to have "tons more". Do bits in your world have weight? Really? Is this why you keep referencing F=ma? Maybe that's why it's so difficult for you to meet the requirements of the scientific method and release all your data along with the parameters of your experiment, because the bits weigh so much and you can't pour them all down your internet connection without crushing your computer.

 

It's so obvious that those pictures are merely pictures of TV screens with one moment of a video game displayed on them and it is impossible to know if they were taken during your/his/their experiment or simply Photoshopped in from some other source.

You are scraping the bottom of the barrel. You can play those games yourself and see those images will occur during those games. The REC files are recordings of the motion.

 

Thank you for proving my point. Of course if I (or anybody else) play those games those images will occur during those games. That will happen whether I (or anybody else) is using an analog or digital joystick. Which means your pictures are worthless as data that supports your theory that digital joysticks provide better control than analog joysticks. Those exact same jpegs also illustrate moments where people playing using analog joysticks have more control than their digital joystick-using counterparts. How can anyone know by just looking at still images? They can't. They need all the data. That means you releasing the parameters of your "experiments" and releasing comparative video and sensor readings of the moment to moment game plays of all the members of your control and experimental groups. You do have control and experimental groups, right? You do have recordings of each game play run for each player using each joystick being tested, right? No self-respecting scientist or educated person claiming to have run experiments would be without that basic data. I can just guess where you wind up in that assessment.

 

Absolutely true, I don't see the data because you haven't released it,...All you and your other persona do is present excuses and claim you don't have to do the only thing that you are required to do after claiming to have megabytes of data from conducted experiments.

 

P.S. Remember to attach the files from you fantasy experiments and their imaginary data this time.

You are caught in a bubble. The files are attached like they were before. They are sufficient to expose the flaws of analog joysticks. The REC files are for all three-- keyboard, digital joystick, and analog joystick. Motion parameters are for the screenshot given.

 

Yes, I am caught in a bubble that contains people who actually back up their statements and actually support their claims of having run "hundreds" of experiments" and having "megabytes" of data. Your three .rec files are raw data only. Your three .rec files are for one game only. You claim that digital joysticks provide better control than analog joysticks, period. That means it holds true for all game players and for all games. In order for you to prove that to be true you need to release all your imaginary data. All of it. For (at the least) dozens of games of varying controller input requirements played by dozens of game players using different joysticks. Do you actually have any of that or are you just going to attach a 5000x5000x500 bit jpeg of yourself next to a billboard that has the words "megabytes of data" written on it?

 

You have been continuously asked for all your data. You continuously claim to have all of it, "tons" in fact, yet you continuously restrict your output to three .rec files of one game and a few useless jpegs of computer monitors. What happened, are you using a digital joystick to try to attach all your "megabytes" of data to your posts?

 

 

P.S. Remember to attach all your data along with all the parameters of your experiments this time. Or admit by your refusal to do so that you're too dumb to follow simple instructions and too dishonest to follow through with the responsibility of communicating your results that the scientific method which you claim to have followed requires.

 

Put-up or shut-up time. All the data and all the parameters for your "hundreds" of experiments or colossal fail.

[ledzep]

Saying digital joysticks > analog joysticks in control is mathematical just like F=ma.

 

Why, because you used a greater-than sign? It's that easy? What are the values for "digital joystick" and "analog joystick", then? Here, try these -

 

aprioriksi + Didntknow16 = same guy

 

claiming to have "megabytes" of data from "hundreds" of experiments < actually providing all the data and all the parameters of those experiments

 

aprioriksi claims of having "megabytes" of data * number of posts where he refuses to supply all his data and all his experimental parameters = amount of times he reinforces that he is lying

 

What kind of math is that? Failgebra?

 

I am not sure about what you meant by scientific method is world of bias, skepticism, opinion, etc.

 

You're not sure? Is it because you're analog and therefore have ZERO control of your existence?

[kool kitty89]

LOL, yeah after all my comments about purely digital joysticks with long throw and wide range (high precision) control, or even ones with long throw and only low precision (I believe the odyssey 2 is like that -long throw, spring centered, 9 state digital).

 

Let alone my comments about joystick implementation in general being a huge factor: ie functionality, form factor, reliability, etc. (general human interfacing issues not related to analog or digital control)

You speculate too much. Better to look around and see for yourself. The MasterPlay, Digital Joystick Adapter, etc. are digital joystick interfaces for the Atari 5200. They are not analog joysticks that you use with them nor are they called analog joystick interfaces. Human is thinking discrete motion and he interfaces with a digital joystick. It's not purely digital since the digital signals have to be converted to analog and back to digital and slow sampling rate, but still when I move right, I won't be producing a range of values from center to 228. Similarly for other directions. It makes a HUGE difference in the uncertainties that I talked about. And obviously, the throw is the same as digital joystick since it's the same joystick.

 

OK, then what was the point about using only the digital button lines on the PC that you mentioned earlier??? (other than polling speeds...)

 

And what about controllers only using 4 switches but with throw length and/or accuracy worse than the 5200? (and that's not just hypothetical, but applicable to many real-world cases like the Oddyssey 2, Intellivision or various poorer quality or just oddly designed joysticks/gamepads be it 3rd party or 1st party) Of course the same range of issues applies to analog (or digital) high precision controllers.

 

 

That IS all analog though and to call it "digital" is a misnomer generated by pop culture: it's like calling Asteroids or Atari Star Wars (or ESB) in the arcade "video games" ... they're electronic games, but not video in the slightest. (pure CRT vector displays, no video -ie raster- scanning at all unless it's done in software -I think the vectrex may have a raster scan mode or does raster text in software for some displays) Or case in point: how the N64's thumbstick is called "analog" when it's fully digital as much as an optical track ball or ball mouse is. (or how programmers often consider all high-precision control "analog" regardless as they see it all as high precision digital data only and have no telling wither analog or digital mechanisms were used at the source input device)

Or the opposite, where you have throw distance and feel no different from a normal 4-switch stick/d-pad but replace the dome switches with pressure sensitive switches (like piezoelectric) that have high precision AND may even be truly analog (ie voltage based) in nature but may be used exactly like low precision on/off switches (from the user end -slightly different at the programmer's end) or allow the full analog precision to be used. (pressure sensitive control like the d-pad and buttons on the PS3)

 

All those interfaces ARE analog... and getting down to it there's nothing analog or digital about many other control mechanisms in real life. You could have a mechanical switch with 2 positions operating some function on a machine, but that's neither analog nor digital as it has nothing to do with electronics without further context.

You have some fully analog devices that have simple 2 state switches used too, but the system is still all analog in design.

A light switch is neither analog nor digital in that sense either unless it's specifically applied in the context of electronics... though it makes a good analogy for a 1-bit digital switch.

 

Another case would be a telegraph, a fully analog device though (normally) using a data pattern analogous to binary code. (it's not simple on/off though, but more like pulse density modulation or pulse width modulation)

 

A hydraulic/mechanical joystick/yolk in an aircraft is neither analog nor digital for that matter.

 

 

One thing that really blurs this is cases of analog to digital converters and digital to analog converters. Human motion/input is never analog or digital, but it will relate to analog or digital input/output depending on the device being used.

As such, all final inputs to such computers will be digital (if there's analog anywhere, it's converted to digital at some point), the question is if there's analog mechanisms in use, and what those mechanisms are. You could have full digital control where there's only switches being grounded, no variable voltage, no voltage supply at all (other than use for peripherals or serial data encoding), and direct parallel output (or encoding to serial or multiplexing), but then there's use of pots (with anywhere from virtually no throw to very long throw) or pressure sensitive material that starts analog and is converted to digital (but other mechanisms providing similar functionality with pure on/off digital electronic mechanisms), and finally you have low precision "digital" to analog to digital hacks as well.

 

The latter as such would technically be analog in nature either way, but you could look at it rather like a resistor DAC for audio taking digital bits and outputing analog voltage with the exception that it's a human interface device and the initial input is neither analog nor digital but a human input via touch (etc), so it's analogous to an ADC if the human was treated as a digital computer... but anyway this the mechanism often terms "digital" due to the 8-way 9-state like control provided (technically more states than that due to analog drift and such, but the Analog to digital process and software would sort that to 9 acceptable ranges just as with higher precision controls)

It's an analog controller with effectively a 2-bit precision output per axis (the ADC used in POKEY is 8-bit regardless, so sorting would be done at 8-bit resolution with acceptable error/drift/calibration taken into account).

You could have a controller with the resistors built in and directly connecting to the necessary lines and switches with minimal wiring/electronics (and would obviously be significantly cheaper than using potentiometers and not much different in cost from a plain switch based controller with parallel output) a normal switch based stick that was acting as a normal digital joystick internally, and in that case you would have more of an argument for a true digital to analog conversion taking place (except there's no digital sampling to convert to analog, just raw parallel switch connections/states) and you'd need a slightly more complex interface externally, or at least a bit more wiring, but basically the same thing.

 

For the VCS/A8 and other 2 axis types it would be different from the 4 axis vectrex mechanism (which would actually be a bit easier in some respect, but in all cases you'd only need some resistors and wiring. (and calibration pots if the system you were using didn't auto calibrate on a per controller basis)

I've seen some rather elaborate mechanisms used pointlessly (or seemingly so)... but all you should need is to take the normal 4 directional lines +gnd line and connect them such that "GND" pulls +5V and the converter "box" naturally outputs suitable resistance for neutral to both pot lines, the "low" positions (I assume left an down are used on the 5200) would connect directly to ground (overriding neutral), and up/right would connect to a low resistance values (preferably not bare 5V as some games have issues with that) that similarly override the neutral values. (and for the fire buttons, pull through the gnd used for dn/left) So you'd have one common neutral voltage constantly connected to the POT lines and have the pot inputs get shorted to gnd or higher voltage value for the up/dn/L/R states. (so the neutral voltage would get grounded or the higher voltage would be connected in parallel)

 

I seem to recall a simple schematic for such a controller on Atarimuseum.

 

For the vectrex it's a bit different: you'd have gnd set as neutral for all axes (a neat design avoiding centering calibration entirely, but requiring both + and -5V supplies) and suitably low resistance to provide the maximum upper range for each axis pulling though positive or negative voltage correspondingly -the vectrex uses +/-3.4V. (and the buttons pulled through gnd as normal)

[ledzep]

You can stop speculating as there's more than two people in this thread who disagree with you what to speak of the world.

 

Besides you and Didntknow16, who are the others who disagree with him? Because I only see you two.

 

Nor does majority make you right. Nor does speculating about people's character make your useless speculative argument any stronger.

 

If majority doesn't make him right then it doesn't make you right, either. So explain why at the start of this demonstration of your bias that you made a point of mentioning how everybody (majority) knows that digital joysticks provide better control than analog joysticks and that lots of other people have run the same experiments (you provide ZERO proof for that, by the way) and they all came to the same conclusion. If majority doesn't make you right then having lots of people supposedly getting the same results that you got is worthless and a waste of time to mention. And you are now stating that the results of your poll will be worthless, too, because if more people vote for digital joysticks that doesn't make you or your poll right, haahahaaha. Way to negate yourself. If you want people to think that the results of your poll matter then you have to agree that majority matters and that makes him right, not you.

 

Stop speculating. I'm going to let you think about it and calm down before I answer the rest of your gibberish and drivel since they don't even address the points he made.

[Divya16]

Saying digital joysticks > analog joysticks in control is mathematical just like F=ma.

 

Why, because you used a greater-than sign? It's that easy? What are the values for "digital joystick" and "analog joystick", then? Here, try these -

You avoid points where you LOST and address other things meaning you are trying to shove facts under the rug. Since the thread is so long, you think people won't notice. You are stuck in a contradiction P & -P. You are only opposing things whether they are obviously true or not. You need desperate help. You need to go back to grammar school and learn that inequalities and equations are both mathematical.

 

aprioriksi + Didntknow16 = same guy

That indicates your mental state. Just spewing out venom rather than addressing the points.

 

aprioriksi claims of having "megabytes" of data * number of posts where he refuses to supply all his data and all his experimental parameters = amount of times he reinforces that he is lying

Since I see the data and you don't, it means you are blind. That's all. It doesn't mean the data doesn't exist. Blind literally or blind in knowledge what constitutes data.

 

What kind of math is that? Failgebra?

More meaningless gibberish due to ignorance of what is math.

 

I am not sure about what you meant by scientific method is world of bias, skepticism, opinion, etc.

 

You're not sure? Is it because you're analog and therefore have ZERO control of your existence?

 

That actually opposes you if you ever understand that train of thought. But you got too caught up emotionally in refuting things that you didn't even see that. If scientific method is world of bias, skepticism, opinion, etc. then anything can be declared to be scientific fact and you have NOTHING to say against it. Duh. Like how did you miss that.

[potatohead]

Notice once again, the charge of multiple personas was not denied. IMHO, that's still the most likely scenario explaining the data present on this thread.

 

We are down to just the joystick now, qualifier back door shoved into the original, easily refuted assertion, at the original posters request, I might add, as a way to save this clusterfuck from being a absolute beat down.

 

Well, let's just tag it here and now for the readers to stumble on this later on. Stillwonttalktopotatoheadski made a new entry in the list of things people do to avoid coming to acceptance on a point fairly taken:

 

invoke new comparison to replace old, without acknowledging the original one as refuted, which it is.

Edited December 12, 2010 by potatohead

[Divya16]

You can stop speculating as there's more than two people in this thread who disagree with you what to speak of the world.

 

Besides you and Didntknow16, who are the others who disagree with him? Because I only see you two.

That's what the Dr. Frog's example fits you. He only saw the his well and couldn't conceive of the Atlantic Ocean nor accept the experiment nor try the experiment himself. So you are caught in your bubble. There ARE more than two people who have found that digital joysticks provide superior control.

 

Nor does majority make you right. Nor does speculating about people's character make your useless speculative argument any stronger.

 

If majority doesn't make him right then it doesn't make you right, either. So explain why at the start of this demonstration of your bias that you made a point of mentioning how everybody (majority) knows that digital joysticks provide better control than analog joysticks and that lots of other people have run the same experiments (you provide ZERO proof for that, by the way) and they all came to the same conclusion. If majority doesn't make you right then having lots of people supposedly getting the same results that you got is worthless and a waste of time to mention. And you are now stating that the results of your poll will be worthless, too, because if more people vote for digital joysticks that doesn't make you or your poll right, haahahaaha. Way to negate yourself. If you want people to think that the results of your poll matter then you have to agree that majority matters and that makes him right, not you.

You are not making any sense. He nor I ever claimed that majority makes it right. Find the reference. If majority makes someone right, then no progress would ever be made since someone would come up with something new and if got denied by more people (which usually does happen), then it would be tossed out. Poll shows that there's more than two people that admit that digital joysticks provide better control. The scientific method doesn't involve a poll; that's separate.

 

Stop speculating. I'm going to let you think about it and calm down before I answer the rest of your gibberish and drivel since they don't even address the points he made.

That fits you perfectly. Perhaps, you shouldn't plagurize other people's quotes especially since they apply to you more and would be speculative and emotionally biased of you to try to apply them blindly to others without any evidence.

[potatohead]

And who are those more than two people, and what do they have to substantiate their opinion?

 

By the way, the original point was "better" control, which has shifted to "more" control, both completely useless and unprovable assertions without a qualifier to constrain and allow quantification of "more" and or "better".

 

Without that, the argument is still born, refuted on form alone.

[Divya16]

And what about controllers only using 4 switches but with throw length and/or accuracy worse than the 5200? (and that's not just hypothetical, but applicable to many real-world cases like the Oddyssey 2, Intellivision or various poorer quality or just oddly designed joysticks/gamepads be it 3rd party or 1st party) Of course the same range of issues applies to analog (or digital) high precision controllers.

You can make joysticks however you want, but analog joysticks REQUIRE a longer throw to allow for the inbetween states to be distinguishable whereas digital joysticks can have minimized throw since user will only be hitting the extremes or not doing any motion.

 

That IS all analog though and to call it "digital" is a misnomer generated by pop culture: it's like calling Asteroids or Atari Star Wars (or ESB) in the arcade "video games" ...

 

That's your opinion. Human's interface to computer/joystick plays a bigger role in control than how the signals get converted afterwards. Oh, I have noticed that digital joysticks on Atari 5200 do have some issues as well using the analog signals compared to using a digital joystick on Atari 800.

[potatohead]

By the way, caughtinadresski, your poll doesn't back your assertion in the way you think it does.

 

The assertion is that binary joysticks provide BETTER, or MORE control than analog ones do.

 

Your poll asked what people PREFER, and that's a different thing entirely. A great example would be many people PREFERRING vinyl over CD, even though the CD is technically "BETTER" in a lot of ways.

 

See how that works?

 

Which leaves us with just you asserting you are correct, NOBODY ELSE.

[Divya16]

(Since nobody else seemed to notice the major flaw in aprioriksi's "thinking"...)

You messed up in understanding so you blame your mistakes on others. Everything you write was already refuted several times. The experiment is real, the experience of people that digital provides better control is real, the logic that establishes the same is real, etc. What is unreal is your imagination which you write in your replies. P & -P are never real since only one can exist at the same time.

[kool kitty89]

And what about controllers only using 4 switches but with throw length and/or accuracy worse than the 5200? (and that's not just hypothetical, but applicable to many real-world cases like the Oddyssey 2, Intellivision or various poorer quality or just oddly designed joysticks/gamepads be it 3rd party or 1st party) Of course the same range of issues applies to analog (or digital) high precision controllers.

You can make joysticks however you want, but analog joysticks REQUIRE a longer throw to allow for the inbetween states to be distinguishable whereas digital joysticks can have minimized throw since user will only be hitting the extremes or not doing any motion.

Nope, wrong. And for the sake of argument I'm going to use the (highly incorrect) definition of "analog" meaning many-state/high-precision/wide range and (the equally incorrect) "digital" to refer to a resisted 9-state 8-way low-precision device and ignoring things liek the all digital N64 controller or the 8-way analog genesis controller for the vectrex. (note I'm not using precision as a good/bad thing here, just a technical term)

 

You can have a full high-precision analog controller with almost no throw or no (perceivable) throw at all -technically ALL gampeads/joysticks have some notable throw for functionality, but you could easily have such an analog controller with less throw than the VCS joystick or Sega Genesis gamepad.

It's called using pressure sensitive contacts (like piezoelectric) that register a huge range of states (in the case of piezoelectric, analog voltages) with no perceivable movement, but by pressure, or more accurately: force exerted on the button/contact/device.

That's exactly what all the PS2 Dualshock's buttons do and what the PS3 Dualshock 3's d-pad does as well. (which I've brought up many, many times including in the context of the DS back when it was being compared)

You also have the analog nubs on some laptops and the PSP with almost no throw, but based predominantly on pressure sensitivity. (not sure if any use piezo electric or an actual potentiometer assembly, but I wouldn't be too surprised if different designs used both mechanisms -piezoelectric should be more compact)

 

Then there's the fly by wire joystick mechanism I mentioned for fighter aircraft where flight sticks have no throw (so much so that pilots initially complained and the engineers loosened it up slightly to have a bit of play in the neutral area) with force/pressure sensitivity and no relation to throw distance whatsoever. That was key to providing precision control under high G forces when the pilot can't move his hands/arms much.

 

That's your opinion. Human's interface to computer/joystick plays a bigger role in control than how the signals get converted afterwards.

Two totally separate issues though. And human interfacing issues is why I brought up controller form factor/design/quality/accuracy/implementation in general... several times.

Try comparing the VCS sticks to the colecovision, 7800, or intellivision controllers... or various gamepads, arcade sticks, 1st and 3rd party, etc, etc.

Human interfacing is the same thing for paddles using a lever/joystick control mechanism or a slider, or a dial (as Atari used for Pong and many games on the 2600). "Paddle" does not imply a dial, the atari "paddle controllers" are not paddles, but controllers intended to control paddles... they are analog dials and as you should know, levers (or more often sliders) were used in some pong consoles. (and levers are the same as long throw joysticks without the second axis)

 

Go back to before Pong or Computer space and you have the brown box being worked on in the 1960s implementing 2 analog dials for 2-axis analog control which was eventually implemented in the Odyssey console, and it actually would have been a lot more intuitive to have an analog joystick (especially one like the Tandy CoCo -which was rather ill suited to most games on that computer). Hmm, that would be an interesting hack to an Odyssey. Of course it lacked some of the features of PONG (scoring and proper ball and paddle boundaries). Of course, making PONG simpler was part of its success (and the use of analog/dial controls rather than the digital/button controls of computer space -some late 2 palyer models had sticks iirc), but it would have been really interesting to see a pong game with real 2 axis control. (ie making it a bit more like air hocky with actual control over where an dhow hard you hit the ball/puck)

 

 

 

If you want to talk about analog vs digital, that's fine, but if you want to talk about the superiority of one specific controller design or human interfacing, that's a totally different topic.

[JamesD]

It's not a particular instance-- I mentioned many cases where analog has higher failure rate just in Donkey Kong. You do worse in the entire game--

You do worse in the entire game.

 

+1,000

 

No need to get emotional. As I said, opinions don't mean much to me. The fact that only controlled experiments done show that digital joysticks provide better control means by induction that they apply to others as well. Just like F=ma example. And there's the logic/math to back up that they in fact must follow the same results. No need to dismiss the facts under the rug and try to make F=ma other other experiments look subjective.

2 problems here.

 

Controlled experiments. And what controls were used to keep the results from being biased? You are clearly showing where an analog joystick failed in a game designed for digital joysticks. That was clearly the aim of your "experiment".

 

And then you refer to F=ma again when we know that has nothing to do with this and you haven't shown how you analyzed the data. This would be a statistical analysis rather than simple math anyway.

Unless you can demonstrate F=ma was used in the analysis of the data you need to drop it from the discussion.

 

As far as I see it, F=ma and digital joysticks > analog joysticks in control both can be experimentally proven and both are mathematical relations. It's easier to prove an inequality than an exact equation. The point you missed is that whatever failures you have in games for digital joysticks also exist in all other games; you may not notice them but the inaccuracy remains.

As far as you see it.

But F=ma has nothing to do with this experiment and I have yet to see any mathematical proof that IS related to this experiment that someone else could use to verify results.

The fact is, the only "data" posted is not supported in any way with a mathematical or statistical analysis.

As a professor in a math class would say... SHOW YOUR WORK!

What is the mathematical relation?

 

You claim I missed the point but that isn't true, you are just dodging the point. The fact that you dodged it or any other point doesn't make you right.

 

Claiming failures for games for digital joysticks also exist in all other games has not been proven. You are just claiming it is so.

I know you can't prove it either. Do you know how I know? I owned a CoCo and there were interfaces that allowed you to attach a digital controller. Try playing 'Double Back' with an Atari digital joystick and a regular CoCo joystick. The difference will be painfully obvious.

Watch the video and pay attention at 3:50

This guy isn't even in the discussion and he backs up my point.

[JamesD]

(Since nobody else seemed to notice the major flaw in aprioriksi's "thinking"...)

You messed up in understanding so you blame your mistakes on others. Everything you write was already refuted several times. The experiment is real, the experience of people that digital provides better control is real, the logic that establishes the same is real, etc. What is unreal is your imagination which you write in your replies. P & -P are never real since only one can exist at the same time.

Quote of the day:

"You messed up in understanding"