Gamepad

A gamepad is a type of video game controller held in two hands, where the fingers (especially thumbs) are used to provide input.

Generally they have been made to circumvent the lack of joystick support in some computer games, e.g. the Belkin Nostromo SpeedPad n52.

There are several programs that emulate keyboard and mouse input with a gamepad such as the free and open-source cross-platform software antimicro,[1][2] Enjoy2,[3] or proprietary commercial solutions such as JoyToKey, Xpadder, and Pinnacle Game Profiler.

initially used toggle switches built into the computer readout display to control the game.

These switches were awkward and uncomfortable to use, so Alan Kotok and Bob Saunders built and wired in a detached control device for the game.

[citation needed] Nintendo developed a gamepad device for directional inputs, a D-pad with a "cross" design for their Donkey Kong handheld game.

[4] Though three-dimensional games rose to prominence in the mid-1990s, controllers continued to mostly operate on two-dimensional principles.

An analog stick peripheral, called "Nunchuk," also contains an accelerometer[10] but unlike the Wii Remote, it lacks any pointer functionality.Gamepads are also available for personal computers.