After Burner 2 appreciation

[SignOfZeta]

The more you know: Both Atari 5200 and Vectrex came out in the same month (Nov 1982) so both gets the first analog joystick award.  However there have been analog controller before, a single line motion including Atari paddle (1978) and about 500 different Pong clones.

Back to the topic, is there any info on DIY analog controller or schematic for these games?  PC style analog joystick pops up a lot at Goodwill, that provides X and Y analog plus 2 buttons so it would be easy to adapt it to work on these games.

In the early days of gaming analog was more common than digital, partially because in many cases a large portion of the hardware was analog as well. When you are dealing with an arcade machine or console that literally does not have a CPU, analog is a lot easier to work with. Analog sticks (and digital) were also commonly used on personal computers since their inception.

I don't know why people seem to think that stuff started in the 90s.

[Bonknuts]

Hmm.. I dunno about being easier to work with. Digital is simpler to implement (less hardware) and is simpler to read as well. I think analog was considered a natural interface because it simulated real life in many situations. I'm sure that, in the early days, games were seen to mimic reality rather than create their own universe and rules, and so they would expected to naturally evolve into something more life like, realism, when the hardware matured to a certain point. And in a way, they were right (thinking of this point in time). There just happen to be a temporary diversion along the way.

 But it is interesting to see games start out with analog controls as the standard input (late 70's, early 80's), then migrate over to digital controls (gamepads), and then back again to analog when 3D generation picked up steam (PS/Sat/N64). 

[Necromancer]

Obviously they're nothing like a analogue stick in how they're used, but aren't both the PCE mouse and pachinko controllers analogue? 

[Mathius]

Obviously they're nothing like a analogue stick in how they're used, but aren't both the PCE mouse and pachinko controllers analogue? 

That''s a damn good question. I would assume a pachinko controller would have to be analogue. Though I could envision a digital workaround sorta working.