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- Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!laird
- From: laird@think.com (Laird Popkin)
- Newsgroups: rec.games.video
- Subject: Re: Home Video Games History
- Date: 22 Dec 1992 21:24:10 GMT
- Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
- Lines: 58
- Message-ID: <1h811qINNsll@early-bird.think.com>
- References: <g6m2yxg@rpi.edu> <1992Dec18.164854.20287@admiral.uucp> <1992Dec21.205819.13471@gallant.apple.com>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: django.think.com
-
- In article <1992Dec21.205819.13471@gallant.apple.com> jens_alfke@gateway.qm.apple.com (Jens Alfke) writes:
- >Christopher Jon Petit, petitc@vccnw04.its.rpi.edu writes:
- >> Perhaps the first cartridge-based game system was the Fairchild video
- >game
- >>system. Unfortunately, it was far too complex for the people of its
- >time--
- >>it had a 'joystick' that could be twisted/pulled/pushed and ALL of these
- >>would provide signals to the game. The only game I've heard of for this
- >>system was a blackjack game.
- >
- >I had one of those -- my father worked for Fairchild at the time and
- >brought one home. The controller was excellent. The head of the joystick
- >could move in eight directions, could be twisted clockwise or
- >counterclockwise, and could be pushed in or pulled out.
-
- So that was who made that game. I played one once in a store, and thought
- that it was amazingly cool. The degree of control that you got in the
- Hockey game was incredible, but it took a long time to get used to the idea
- of controlling the goalie and the player with the same joystick, depending
- on what you did with the joystick. There was also a tank game, where you
- controlled the motion of the tank and the angle of the turret separately.
- I thought that it was great that you could make your tank veer left, and
- have the turret track right to compensate, in a single, natural maneuver.
-
- The controls, if I remember, were:
-
- joystick: 8-positions
- head: pull, push, twist left or right
-
- I don't know if I'd agree with "too complex for people of its time" -- if
- anything, videogame controls have gotten simpler over time. Look at the
- way videogames pulled back from early attempts at analog joysticks,
- multidimensional controls, etc., and standardized on the "least common
- denominator" 8-direction joystick with one or two buttons.
-
- >There were about ten cartridges, I think; other than the blackjack game I
- >recall hockey (really nice for the time; you moved one player (paddle)
- >with the regular joystick moves and could rotate it by twisting the
- >joystick, and moved the goalie up and down by pushing in or out) air
- >combat and a tank battle.
- >
- >It flopped, of course.
-
- Shame. I think that they ran into trouble because the joystick tended to
- break, because people got confused by the variety of controls, and because
- the games tended to have extra features tacked on to show off the joytick.
- IMO, of course.
-
- >(Oh, and isn't Street Fighter 2 put out by Capcom, not Nintendo?)
- >
- >--Jens Alfke
-
-
- --
- - Laird Popkin, Thinking Machines
-
- Connection Machine: Massively parallel supercomputer. Also a cool black
- cube with more blinking lights than you can shake a stick at.
-