choplifter controls

[bradhig1]

Why did they have to make the fire button rotate the chopper and fire at the same time? Sometimes when I try to fire the chopper rotates making it hard to hit tanks. Same with modern games too many moves on one button. Why can't they leave it at one button one move?

[White Flame]

Because the Commodore computers, following the old Atari joystick pinout, only had 1 fire button and never successfully progressed from there (though CD32 tried).

 

If it was "one button one move", you'd only ever have 1 move on those platforms.

 

The real problem is that even though the pinout could do 3 buttons easily by repurposing the paddle signals, all the joysticks only ever bothered with 1, and no software "killer app" ever broke out into offering more support.

[+save2600]

Yep, shame a two button standard wasn't adopted early on. Even the CX40 could/should have evolved to have 2 buttons, like the Wico 5200 sticks. Would have felt perfectly natural too, with the tip of your thumb over the main button with the base of your thumb that pivots, over the second. Much like how it's comfortable or natural enough to hold Run while pressing Jump in the platform games on systems with gamepads.

 

Of course, *some* 16-bit computer games utilized a 2-button setup, but not enough and it certainly wasn't the standard. Just see all those games that use Up for Jump. sigh