Contextual Studies: History of the Game Controller

Controllers are what allow players to interact with video games, they are the input device that controls gamer movement and manipulation.

Controllers: The Early Years

Joysticks allowed 8 directional movements, (up,down, left, right and angles) with the movement of a protruding vertical stick gripped with the fist. The Atari 2600 was one of the first machines to popularize the joystick, they were bulky with a heavy base but were able to be disconnected from the console so users could replace any faulty controllers, this also meant Atari 2600 could use various other controllers such a paddles and balls. These paddles were some of the early developments of analog control, instead of translating movement into digital signals the analog controllers used potentiometers which detected the speed of gamer paddle manipulation.

Controllers of the 80's and 90's

Advanced Motion Gaming Controllers
Eye Toy
The EyeToy is a color digital camera device, similar to a webcam, for the PlayStation 2. The technology uses computer vision and Gesture Recognition to process images taken by the camera. This allows players to interact with games using motion, color detection and also sound, through its built-in microphone.
Wii
Kinect
Move
http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/art-controller.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_Toy