Joysticks, Gamepads, and Wheels, Oh My!

Table of Contents
By Loyd Case
Published: 12/1999

I needed to take a break - from graphics cards, hard drives, motherboards, and other esoterica that live inside computers - and do a little gaming. At the same time, I'd been getting a lot of e-mail recently from people inquiring about joysticks and wheels. With the spate of driving and flying games that have come out recently, game controllers seem to be on people's minds. In the end, I combined my need to play a few games with people's need to see what's out there in the world of joysticks and wheels. Along the way, I tossed in a few gamepads and was off and running.

Controllers Today
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When you walk through any computer superstore, you often come across shelf upon shelf of game controllers. There's a seemingly endless variety of gamepads, joysticks, and even steering wheels. There was no possible way to cover all the available products, so I picked out a bunch that looked interesting, were widely available, and were moderately priced. The most expensive controller was a hundred bucks, and a few were $20 or less.

I'm gratified to see more and more USB controllers on the market, though there is still a wide array of gameport-driven controllers still available. Until USB-equipped systems completely replace the older, non-USB PCs, gameport controllers will be available. The good news is that a number of them support dual interfaces - either gameport and USB or serial port and USB.

If you have a choice, USB is preferable - but it's not a panacea. For example, you'd think that a USB game controller would be purely digital, but some still require calibration. The good news is that those controllers only need to be calibrated one time - they hold calibration much better than gameport-based controllers.

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