Xref: utzoo rec.games.video:1535 comp.sys.atari.st:12803 comp.sys.atari.8bit:2080
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!att!ihlpm!njd
From: njd@ihlpm.ATT.COM (DiMasi)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video,comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Was Re: New Atari Home Video Game
Message-ID: <2679@ihlpm.ATT.COM>
Date: 8 Dec 88 00:42:31 GMT
References: <8060@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 61

> --Kenneth Soohoo	(soohoo@cory.Berkeley.Edu) writes:
> 
> In article <401926c9.1285f@maize.engin.umich.edu> billkatt@caen.engin.umich.edu (Steve Bollinger) writes:
>>
>>No video game that only supports one-button joysticks is worth $100.
>>You need at least two to play reasonably complex games.
>>
>>-Steve
> 
> The Atari 7800 system has two buttons. The XE system has one button, which
> seems to work just fine, and has never bothered me -- does anyone else
> care to comment on the merits of more buttons? How about the merits of
> different control mechanisms...
> 
Yes, I care to comment.  Although I don't have  much  experience  with
multi-button  joysticks to compare it to, I have found (in the 8 years
[I can't believe it!]  or so that I have been playing  with  Atari  8-
bits,   and briefly tried 2600 and Intellivision) that one button on a
joystick is quite enough.  I feel that  in  the   "heat   of   battle"
(assuming  a fast-paced  video  game,  which  most seem to be) that  I
would tend to become somewhat confused with > 1 button.  (3 buttons on
a mouse  seem to  be  too  many  for me,  although  I'm  again  not  a
vastly  experienced  "mouser".  This would especially be true if there
were no  commonality among  video  games  in  the  way that they  used
the  joystick  buttons.  "Which one is the fire button in Zorgblaster,
again?  I forgot."

About other control devices:  I am seriously thinking  about  spending
$10  or whatever for a reconditioned Atari (or after-market) Trakball.
What would I do with it?  Well, maybe use GOE  or  Diamond  in  "mouse
mode!"   It  should work, since (I have been told by Matt Ratcliff, an
8-bit "expert") Missile Command in Trakball  mode  works  with  an  ST
mouse!   (Some  people think, and they may be right, that the Trakball
needs a small [?] modification to work like an  ST  mouse...  talk/net
to/with  the  Michigan  Atari  Magazine folks... I don't know for sure
who's right.)

I have a Koala pad (which I bought used from  a  local  "defector"-to-
Macintosh)  with  one  button  in really bad shape - so I just use the
other.  It works a bit more clumsily for me, and I will fix it one  of
these  days (sure, eh?) but overall, I like it.  One can build (I read
in ANALOG  about  2  years  ago)  a  Koala-pad-emulation  joystick  (a
proportional  joystick) for the 8-bits, out of a R-Snack joystick pot.
and a very few parts (resistors and ?) I have not tried it, but one of
these  days....   (If  it  would  only  work with Flight Simulator - I
refuse to pay whatever-it-costs for a  custom  proport.  joystick  for
FS2,  when I can barely fly the thing [splash!  or, at DuPage airport,
crash!  I can't land it].)

On my Christmas wish list is a light gun (probably a Sega gun modified
to  work  with the 8-bits, better, I hear, than the Atari l-gun) and a
game to use it.  (So far, that == Barnyard Blaster, if  only  Crossbow
would be out sooner!)

I've said more than enough for now (and maybe for quite a  while  :-).
See you at your Atari dealer (:-).

Nick DiMasi       njd@ihlpm.ATT.COM    ...att!ihlpm!njd    DELPHI: TURBONICK
Uni'q Digital Technologies (Fox Valley Software subsidiary;
   ^          working as a contractor at AT&T Bell Labs in Naperville, IL)
(  | this is an accent mark, supposed to replace the dot over the 'i')