| Bamboleo said: "potentiometer-based analog stick" It happens the all mighty craptacular "analog stick" from Atari 5200 was nothing else than a directional stick programmed with some more standart pin points, not really user-free chosen angle and direction. http://pinouts.ru/Inputs/JoystickAtari5200_pinout.shtml |
I don't know how you came to that conclusion from the technical document you've linked to. I quote from it:
Analog Direction Inputs
Potentiometer inputs are 0-500kohm, linear. Directional inputs are read by a RC delay circuit, i.e. the time it takes a capacitor to recharge after being discharged determines the potentiometer positions.
- North=0 ohm between pins 9 and 11
- South=500 ohms between pins 9 and 11
- West=0 ohm between pins 9 and 10
- East=500 ohms between pins 9 and 10
I don't know how competent you are in technical stuff -and if you aren't you should not be drawing conclusion from wiring schemes- but that means that the input (ie the stick position) was coded linearly as a resistance between pins 9 and 11 for the y axis and between pins 9 and 10 for the x axis.
Linearly meaning that if you displaced the lever twice as much, you got twice as much electric resistance. Displace the lever in any direction and you would have a number between 0-500 on the y axis and another 0-500 number on the x axis.
That's what an analog control is, as opposed to a digital one: you don't just have a binary 0/1 bit telling you if you're pushing up, but a whole range of values. Thus the stick was not a digital directional stick.
Was it a crappy controller? Probably, as it was not even self centering as the vectrex one was, but that's not the point.
Go read the wikipedia article to find other examples of analog console controllers predating the n64 one, there is even a sony double analog flight stick mentioned. And let the whole argument go.
