Controller Idea

[CrazyChris]

I was trying out some games yesterday and realized it would be more comfortable if the fire buttons on the controller were #1 & 2 on the keypad. I am going to try remapping these in an emulator.

[pimpmaul69]

I was trying out some games yesterday and realized it would be more comfortable if the fire buttons on the controller were #1 & 2 on the keypad. I am going to try remapping these in an emulator.

it wont work. You cannot press the keypad and direction pad at the same time on an intellivision controller

[7800fan]

File this under WTF were the engineers smoking when they designed the controller. They wanted to cram a total of 15 buttons (2 of the side buttons are the same) and 16 direction disc over 8 wires (9th wire is common ground). The side button were carefully done so it won't interfere with the disc or keypad but the keypad and disc shares some of the same wires so when one is being used, other can't be used without strange result. This is even mentioned in instruction not to use keypad and disc at the same time. The number of times I got killed in AD&D because I didn't release the disc to use the pad is staggering.

[freewheel]

It's actually an incredibly clever design given the hardware available at the time. We didn't see a controller that could handle more inputs than pins until many years later, once chips were cheap enough to build into the controllers themselves.

 

It's just unfortunate that game designers didn't always make the best choices. A lot of it is being over-ambitious and not really thinking through certain control schemes. To me, especially given the games of the time, 3 buttons while moving should have been more than enough. Hell, it was enough for over a decade after the INTV came out. The keypad should only have been used for selecting things like menus or options, when you're not moving.

Never mind the ergonomics of it. There's a reason keypads appeared and disappeared very quickly. They were a bad idea out of the gate.

[intvnut]

I agree it was a clever design. It was completely passive, too: No multiplexing to scan out the inputs.

 

Theoretically, with a 9-wire interface, you could get 20 unique buttons if you multiplexed as a 4x5 matrix. But, to avoid ghosting, you'd also need a bunch of diodes. In fact... as I understand it, that's how the Coleco controllers worked.

 

Keypads had a pretty good run—over 15 years. The only thing to dislodge them I think were: Scads of extra buttons, and eventually hats or secondary control sticks so you could control movement and aiming separately.

Edited March 17, 2015 by intvnut

[freewheel]

Keypads had a pretty good run—over 15 years. The only thing to dislodge them I think were: Scads of extra buttons, and eventually hats or secondary control sticks so you could control movement and aiming separately.

 

They didn't get dislodged so much as abandoned for the awkward, clunky input scheme they were. After the Crash they just faded way (except for Atari being silly).

 

Intellivision, Colecovision, 5200, Jaguar. And that last only because Atari just didn't get it. Most games on these systems didn't even really use them other than for trivial things. It's one of the things I love about the Intellivision in an obscure-charm kinda way - it's really the only console that ever used a keypad to any great extent, and that was all due to Mattel's insistence.

[intvnut]

 

They didn't get dislodged so much as abandoned for the awkward, clunky input scheme they were. After the Crash they just faded way (except for Atari being silly).

 

One nice thing about keypads is that they gave you the possibility of a "soft surface". That is, each game could define its own positional UI on the controller itself, complete with a game-specific skin. Consider Baseball vs. Bomb Squad, for example. Overlays, which are what 'skinned' the controller with that custom UI, are another concept that died.

 

Or has it? Look at today's smart phones and tablets. They are now a true soft-surface, with the skin built in. Far better than keypad + overlay, but trying to achieve the same thing, in some sense. Obviously, the modern tech helps.

 

Anyway, enough rambling on my part.

[Binth]

Now that would be a cool replacement controller tying off of intvnut's smartphone comment, use a touch screen as the keypad with a couple action buttons on the side. Could have all the overlays available built in or on a card. I guess now that I think about it the disc makes this not as cool as I originally thought!

[mthompson]

Interestingly, the Vectrex Regeneration app allows players to use their iPhones as the controllers via bluetooth. You pair the device through the game interface and then have at it. We've had decent results playing this way while streaming to an Apple TV. Of course, physical buttons feel better and let you keep your eyes on the screen.

 

[intvnut]

Of course, physical buttons feel better and let you keep your eyes on the screen.

 

That's the one big difference between between smartphone / tablet apps and using a 'smart screen' for an overlay on a controller with the display elsewhere. With a smartphone or tablet, the game display is also the input device, whereas with the hand controller, you don't want to be looking at it very often.

 

That was actually my reasoning behind picking the material I did for the original Space Patrol overlays. The material was soft enough that you could still really feel the buttons through the overlays as compared to stiffer material. Unfortunately, it was a bit too thick and not sufficiently opaque. In the end, almost nobody puts the overlays in the controller these days, making them really a showpiece rather than something practical.

 

Of course, Space Patrol didn't really need overlays to play, so there's that too...

[+DZ-Jay]

 

That's the one big difference between between smartphone / tablet apps and using a 'smart screen' for an overlay on a controller with the display elsewhere. With a smartphone or tablet, the game display is also the input device, whereas with the hand controller, you don't want to be looking at it very often.

 

That was actually my reasoning behind picking the material I did for the original Space Patrol overlays. The material was soft enough that you could still really feel the buttons through the overlays as compared to stiffer material. Unfortunately, it was a bit too thick and not sufficiently opaque. In the end, almost nobody puts the overlays in the controller these days, making them really a showpiece rather than something practical.

 

Of course, Space Patrol didn't really need overlays to play, so there's that too...

 

I put the overlays when I play. I know I'm one of the few.. . To me, it helps with the immersion into the Intellivision "retro" experience.

 

dZ.

[freewheel]

I remember a lot of gaming keyboards tried out OLED key displays. It never really took off, because at the end of the day having to look at a controller sucks every time. it's the biggest reason I just can't get into the WiiU, even though I'm a huge Nintendo fan. I cannot stand how often games force me to look away from the TV. Much like Mattel enforced "overlays even when unneeded", Nintendo seems to really want developers to force use of that screen way more than is necessary for a fun game.

[+save2600]

I put the overlays when I play. I know I'm one of the few.. . To me, it helps with the immersion into the Intellivision "retro" experience.

 

I would too, but don't because I never did back in the day - so not very "retro" to me at all. haha Feels weird and more "spongy" having them in today actually

 

Too bad the controllers always mark the overlays up a bit inserting and removing. Thin stripe right down the center of the overlay.

[m-crew]

I put the overlays when I play. I know I'm one of the few.. . To me, it helps with the immersion into the Intellivision "retro" experience.

 

dZ.

I do as well... I agree, it brings me back in time that's for sure..

[CrazyChris]

it wont work. You cannot press the keypad and direction pad at the same time on an intellivision controller

 

Phone keypads were like this too. You can only press one key at a time.

 

I actually hacked one by cutting traces and soldering additional wires.

Edited March 19, 2015 by CrazyChris

[freewheel]

 

Phone keypads were like this too. You can only press one key at a time.

 

 

 

That's by design though. The touch-tone system didn't have support for chords

[intvnut]

 

That's by design though. The touch-tone system didn't have support for chords

 

But at the time, phones certainly had support for (and generally required) cords.

 

And technically, each of the touch tones themselves were chords on their own. DTMF: Dual Tone, Multiple Frequency. I wonder what how the consumer POTS system would respond to those four extra keys defined in the standard...

 

 

 

One of my daydreams back in the day (mid-1980s) was to try to make a simple modem that worked off of DTMF signals, using DTMF generator and DTMF decoder chips available in the Jameco catalog. (Those Jameco and Digi-Key catalogs fueled many of my budding-engineer daydreams through middle school and high school. By the end of the 80s, I even started to design my own computer!)

Edited March 21, 2015 by intvnut