Page 7 - Old School Gamer Magazine Issue #40 FREE Edition

Turning them interacted with the on-screen action. That sounds obvious, and in those days, that “action” boiled down to table tennis and variations on that framework
- two paddles and a ball - such
as air hockey. But the newness of home gaming and of controllers was likely as wondrous to everyone who used them as the Atari Video Computer System’s joystick was to Howard Phillips.
Looking at it today, the Odyssey’s controller is both similar to what
we expect from modern gaming systems - a shape that fits in the hands, if not comfortably - and
also alien. Two knobs in 1972, two analog sticks since the late ‘90s with the introduction of controllers we’ll discuss later. The Odyssey’s boxy controllers caught some flak for their size, and while it was the first to catch that flak, it was hardly the last. “The first-generation Xbox controller was often dinged for being too big for players’ hands. The size of the controller has generally also grown in pace with the complexity of the games, which demands more input options and more precise controls,” wrote Drew Robarge for the National Museum of History.
In another first, the Odyssey was predicated on playing a game of Pong. So was the next controller on our list, and Atari’s Pong was both the console and the input device. Released in June 1975, the Pong console could be considered the
first arcade-to-home conversion. The idea, proposed by Atari engineer Lee, was simple: Translate the financial success of the 1972 arcade sensation into a device that connected to consumer television sets. The console featured two dials on the front, one on the left and the other on the right, so two players could compete, all without a ping- pong table crowding the living room.
That brings us to the Atari VCS/2600 joystick, although Atari didn’t break that mold. Coin-op companies had taken cues from
aviation design and created a stick that maneuvered objects on cabinet screens. Still, the 2600’s joystick
is groundbreaking in its own way. “For many years, this simple design became the standard for home consoles and arcade cabinets, with variations constantly hitting the market,” editor Kory Kennedy wrote for Popular Mechanics. The design was, again, a study in simplicity - an arcade joystick, but in a square small enough to fit in your hand. The trinity of personal computers
at the time, the Commodore PET, TRS80, and Apple II, all used joysticks of a similar design, perhaps with an extra button or two.
From that point, chunky squares evolved into rectangles and swapped out sticks for other, flatter forms of input, and single buttons for multiple buttons. Such was the case of the Intellivision in 1979. Its controller sported a number pad like what you’d see on a phone. That left plenty of options for input, as did the circular disc you used to move in 16 directions.
The Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System controller is one of the most influential
ever made. Angular, thin,
and sturdy, the gamepad’s black, gray, and red color scheme gave it a futuristic look. At first glance, the directional pad seemed to offer four directions. Then players realized holding two directions at a time allowed for diagonal movement, something developers of games like The Karate Kid took advantage of by mapping up to jump instead of the A button.
The d-pad was arguably the most important element of the NES controller’s design. As they often did and still do, Nintendo put a new spin on old tech. Its Game & Watch handhelds needed a way for you to control them, and that would fit in your pocket. That made a joystick impractical.
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