Joystick

Joysticks are also used for controlling machines such as cranes, trucks, underwater unmanned vehicles, wheelchairs, surveillance cameras, and zero turning radius lawn mowers.

[2] There are also competing claims on behalf of fellow pilots Robert Loraine, James Henry Joyce, and A. E. George.

Loraine is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary for using the term "joystick" in his diary in 1909 when he went to Pau to learn to fly at Blériot's school.

The George and Jobling aircraft control column is in the collection of the Discovery Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

[4] NRL was actively developing remote controlled aircraft at the time and the joystick was possibly used to support this effort.

The now-defunct Kraft Systems firm eventually became an important OEM supplier of joysticks to the computer industry and other users.

[12] In 1976, Taito released Interceptor, an early first-person combat flight simulator that involved piloting a jet fighter, using an eight-way joystick to aim with a crosshair and shoot at enemy aircraft.

[16] In 1985, Sega's third-person arcade rail shooter game Space Harrier featured a true analog flight stick, used for movement.

[18][19] It was introduced by SNK, initially with the tank shooter TNK III (1985) before it was popularized by the run and gun video game Ikari Warriors (1986).

[21][22] It is often used for arcade gun games, with early examples including Sega's Sea Devil in 1972;[23] Taito's Attack in 1976;[24] Cross Fire in 1977;[25] and Nintendo's Battle Shark in 1978.

[26] During the 1990s, joysticks such as the CH Products Flightstick, Gravis Phoenix, Microsoft SideWinder, Logitech WingMan, and Thrustmaster FCS were in demand with PC gamers.

Joysticks became especially popular with the mainstream success of space flight simulator games like X-Wing and Wing Commander, as well as the "Six degrees of freedom" 3D shooter Descent.

These devices usually use potentiometers to determine the position of the stick,[35] though some newer models instead use a Hall effect sensor for greater reliability and reduced size.

This line adapted several aspects of NASA's RHC (Rotational Hand Controller), which is used for landing and navigation methods.

[36] In 1997 the first gaming joystick with force feedback (haptics) was manufactured by CH Products under license from technology creator, Immersion Corporation.

[43][44][45] In recent times, the employment of joysticks has become commonplace in many industrial and manufacturing applications, such as cranes, assembly lines, forestry equipment, mining trucks, and excavators.

Specialist joysticks, classed as an assistive technology pointing device, are used to replace the computer mouse for people with fairly severe physical disabilities.

Both have consistently managed to demonstrate "conceptual knowledge" of the task required of them during trials, although rhesus monkeys were notably slower to do so.

[49] In 2021, another pair of researchers investigated the level of intelligence in domestic pigs by designing a joystick which could be controlled with their snout.

Unlike the chimpanzees or the rhesus monkeys, none of the four pigs was able to fully meet the 1996's test criteria for "motoric or conceptual acquisition" of the task, but they still performed "significantly above chance".

Possible elements of a video game joystick: 1. stick, 2. base, 3. trigger, 4. extra buttons, 5. autofire switch, 6. throttle, 7. hat switch (POV hat) , 8. suction cups.
Cockpit of a glider with its joystick visible
A prototype Project Gemini joystick-type hand controller, 1962
CH Products Mach II analog joystick for Apple II computers. The small knobs are for (mechanical) calibration, and the sliders engage the self-centering springs.
Computer port view of the Atari standard connector: 1. up, 2. down, 3. left, 4. right, 5. ( pot y), [ citation needed ] 6. fire button, 7. +5 V DC, [ citation needed ] 8. ground , 9. (pot x). [ citation needed ] [ 14 ]
Saitek 's Cyborg 3D Gold around the 2000s. Note its throttle, its extra buttons, and its hat switch.
Hat switch - at top, in green