Two button games?

[zetastrike]

Are there any ST games that support a two button joystick, like Turrican 2 on the amiga? I find it annoying that Atari released a next gen piece of hardware in 1985 and still pushed the use of a joystick design from 1977.

[Justin Payne]

I assume that there were no produced games at the time since there wasn't a 2 button contoller but there has to be some home brew games that take adavantage of the controller evolution.

[Thibr]

Well I never met any ST games that are 2 buttons joystick compatible.

[+save2600]

Yep and that sucks. Amiga has only a handful of two button games - but nearly the same boat as the ST. Ridiculous if you ask me and severely hurt both systems in the gameplay dept. vs. consoles. At least 'some' Amiga computer games take advantage of the CD32 joypad, but was too late by that time.

 

Pretty sure there is a list of 2-button games over at Amiga.org if someone wants to check into it. Chances might be a few of those are also 2-button ST games?

[zetastrike]

I think the problem might be that the ST's joystick port is wired the same way as the VCS, in that it only supports up, down, left, right, and 1 fire. I never understood it. When Atari came out with the 5200 and 7800, they evolved the controllers and gave them more buttons. For some reason, with the advent of 16 bit hardware, they thought one button was sufficient.... I was raised on consoles, so it's a baffling concept. I can forgive it with the 8 bit computers. They were all designed in the late 70s/very early 80s and the games were usually of a complexity that they didn't suffer for not having two fire buttons.

 

The Amiga actually supports up to three buttons (I believe, if I'm wrong, it's two) so there was really no excuse besides lazy Euro developers porting everything to everything else and optimizing nothing.

[Lynxpro]

Depends. Find a list of games for the STe/TT/Falcon that supports the "enhanced controllers" [i.e. the Jaguar controllers] and you'd probably have two or more fire button support.

[Thibr]

Depends. Find a list of games for the STe/TT/Falcon that supports the "enhanced controllers" [i.e. the Jaguar controllers] and you'd probably have two or more fire button support.

True Lynxpro if you consider homebrew games for STE/TT/Falcon :

 

http://reservoir-gods.com/game.htm

 

Maybe others such as r0x :

 

http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2011/04/r0x-atari-ste-2009.html

 

And of course arcades games designed for ATARI Falcon (e.g. evolution : dino dudes which is also a Jaguar game). But I think zetastrike's question refers to the regular joystick port of the machine.

[Lynxpro]

True Lynxpro if you consider homebrew games for STE/TT/Falcon :

 

http://reservoir-gods.com/game.htm

 

Maybe others such as r0x :

 

http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2011/04/r0x-atari-ste-2009.html

 

And of course arcades games designed for ATARI Falcon (e.g. evolution : dino dudes which is also a Jaguar game). But I think zetastrike's question refers to the regular joystick port of the machine.

 

Good point, but there had to be some games that were released after the STE made it to market that actually offered support to the enhanced joystick ports… If not then, there's gotta be some hacks that have done so. I know there's a lot of mods going on to support later versions of TOS, other 680x0 series CPUs, and allowing for installation on hard drives.

[galax]

I don't know of any commercial games made use of the STE's extra joystick ports- the machine just didn't sell in great enough numbers to release software that wouldn't work with the earlier machines.

 

You could wire up a joystick to use two buttons, and plug it into the ST's port zero, and add support for this in software with the second button being seen as the mouse's right click. Unfortunately this is the same as Joystick 1's fire button so it would only work for single player games.

 

I don't think it can be seen of as a bad decision for Atari and Commodore to use just one fire button. 1 fire button was the standard at the time in 1984 or so when these were being designed.

 

Neither machine was really aimed at gamers during early development- it was only later as the prices fell that they became used as games machines- we're lucky they put joystick ports on at all! They didn't even put (much of) a soundchip or hardware scrolling in the ST- designing a new joystick connector would have seemed like a crazy decision.

Edited June 15, 2014 by galax

[Lynxpro]

I don't know of any commercial games made use of the STE's extra joystick ports- the machine just didn't sell in great enough numbers to release software that wouldn't work with the earlier machines.

 

You could wire up a joystick to use two buttons, and plug it into the ST's port zero, and add support for this in software with the second button being seen as the mouse's right click. Unfortunately this is the same as Joystick 1's fire button so it would only work for single player games.

 

I don't think it can be seen of as a bad decision for Atari and Commodore to use just one fire button. 1 fire button was the standard at the time in 1984 or so when these were being designed.

 

Neither machine was really aimed at gamers during early development- it was only later as the prices fell that they became used as games machines- we're lucky they put joystick ports on at all! They didn't even put (much of) a soundchip or hardware scrolling in the ST- designing a new joystick connector would have seemed like a crazy decision.

 

There's no good excuse about the Amiga not offering multi-button support…it was originally designed/destined to be a high-end video game console.

 

Hey, Atari Corp could've given the ST the 5200's DB15 controller ports. But then that would've required additional hardware in the ST and raised the component price which would've been counter to the "RBP" code name.

[galax]

They might have been designing a games machine at first, but on release in 1985 the Amiga 1000 retailed for US$1,295. Wikipedia has some text that seems to suggest they were trying to shrug off the C64's games machine image:

A1000 was marketed as The Amiga from Commodore, though the Commodore logo was omitted from the case. Additionally, the Amiga 1000 was sold exclusively in computer stores rather than the various non computer-dedicated department and toy stores through which the VIC20 and Commodore 64 were retailed. These measures were an effort to avoid Commodore's "toy-store" computer image created during the Tramiel era.

Byte magazine called the Amiga 1000 "the first multimedia computer... so far ahead of its time that almost nobody—including Commodore's marketing department—could fully articulate what it was all about"

Sinclair, Amiga, Atari, Amstrad, TI and many more were all trying to get into selling 'real' computers at the time, not the (largely) games machines they turned into.

Didn't the 5200 get a critical panning because of its at the time unusual non-centering analogue controllers?

Edited June 16, 2014 by galax

[galax]

There's a list of comercial games that support the Enhanced Joystick Ports here: http://www.gamesx.com/controldata/ejp_faq.htm - the released games are:

• Evolution Dino Dudes Published by 16/32
• Llamazap Published by 16/32
• Gravon
• Multi-Briques By Parx
• Ping 2000 By Holland Game Design
• Steel Talons Published by 16/32
• Moonspeeder From Merlin
• Rock'N'Roll Clams Published by Caspian Software
• Zero-5 Published by Caspian Software

[Lynxpro]

 

They might have been designing a games machine at first, but on release in 1985 the Amiga 1000 retailed for US$1,295. Wikipedia has some text that seems to suggest they were trying to shrug off the C64's games machine image:

A1000 was marketed as The Amiga from Commodore, though the Commodore logo was omitted from the case. Additionally, the Amiga 1000 was sold exclusively in computer stores rather than the various non computer-dedicated department and toy stores through which the VIC20 and Commodore 64 were retailed. These measures were an effort to avoid Commodore's "toy-store" computer image created during the Tramiel era.

 

Byte magazine called the Amiga 1000 "the first multimedia computer... so far ahead of its time that almost nobody—including Commodore's marketing department—could fully articulate what it was all about"

Sinclair, Amiga, Atari, Amstrad, TI and many more were all trying to get into selling 'real' computers at the time, not the (largely) games machines they turned into.

Didn't the 5200 get a critical panning because of its at the time unusual non-centering analogue controllers?

 

 

Yes [about the 5200 analog controllers] but Curt has shown Atari Inc. had actual designs for self-centering 5200 joysticks that were never released since at that point the plan was to ditch the 5200 and push the 7800 instead. So Atari Corp could've went with the DB15 ports with or without releasing such 5200 controllers and the ST would've had multi-button support from the start. But again, analog would've cost more.

[galax]

They could have put a blitter and a soundchip in too, but they were trying to rush that thing out of the door

Edited June 16, 2014 by galax

[Lynxpro]

They could have put a blitter and a soundchip in too, but they were trying to rush that thing out of the door

 

Again, the AMY didn't get finished and the BLiTTER came later.

 

Now they probably could've went with the YM2151 and a 68010 instead of the YM2149 and the 68000. It will be interesting to find out from Curt and Marty if the Silver and Gold - or even the Rainbow - graphics chips that Atari Advanced Research had done previously - prior to the Tramiel acquisition - could've been used in the ST but they probably weren't cost effective.

[Memblers]

Again, the AMY didn't get finished and the BLiTTER came later.

 

Now they probably could've went with the YM2151 and a 68010 instead of the YM2149 and the 68000. It will be interesting to find out from Curt and Marty if the Silver and Gold - or even the Rainbow - graphics chips that Atari Advanced Research had done previously - prior to the Tramiel acquisition - could've been used in the ST but they probably weren't cost effective.

 

In internal emails from Atari's arcade sound department, when introducing the YM2151 it was started that Yamaha would not allow Atari to use the chip in their home computers. Sucks for us, but I guess they didn't want to make Atari into their competitor, for the profit of an IC or two.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Memblers

[Lynxpro]

 

In internal emails from Atari's arcade sound department, when introducing the YM2151 it was started that Yamaha would not allow Atari to use the chip in their home computers. Sucks for us, but I guess they didn't want to make Atari into their competitor, for the profit of an IC or two.

 

Woah, I didn't see that comment in the Atari Coin/Games emails. If that's true, I guess they kept that policy in place even with Tramiel's Atari Corp. Most of us assumed Tramiel just wanted to use a cheaper chip [YM2149]. If I recall, Yamaha was trying to sell a MIDI computer around the time of the ST's debut; I don't remember if it was equipped with a YM2151 - or two - or not.

 

That's even more of a shame that the ST didn't come with the AMY.

[Memblers]

I found what I must have been remembering, it's referring to a proposed non-videogame project:		A thornier problem is the fact that our current Yamaha contract,	and presumably any future one we sign to purchase the cheaper chip,	explicitly prohibits us from competing with Yamaha in the consumer	music market.  Ideally what would happen would be that we would design	the product, do a non-disclosure agreement with them, demonstrate the	product, and market the product as a joint venture using Yamaha's name	and distribution channels.  This is tricky, but I'm naive enough to	think it could happen this way. [...]

 

Woah, I didn't see that comment in the Atari Coin/Games emails. If that's true, I guess they kept that policy in place even with Tramiel's Atari Corp. Most of us assumed Tramiel just wanted to use a cheaper chip [YM2149]. If I recall, Yamaha was trying to sell a MIDI computer around the time of the ST's debut; I don't remember if it was equipped with a YM2151 - or two - or not.

 

That's even more of a shame that the ST didn't come with the AMY.

 

I've only just now looked into the AMY chip, it seems ahead of it's time and quite capable. I'm actually designing a chiptune-inspired MIDI-controlled synth, later on I might try experimenting with this kind of synthesis. It doesn't make sense today for sample playback since memory is dirt cheap, but for generating unique sounds, it would be quite interesting.

 

Anyways, sorry about the off-topic posts.

[walter_J64bit]

Games could be patched to use the "enhanced joystickport" if the game calls for use of the keyboard like in Golden Axe the keys could be mapped to the Jaguar's gamepad button's "C" , "B" and "A".