Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac,att!emory!gatech!udel!haven!wam.umd.edu!nebel From: nebel@wam.umd.edu (Chris D. Nebel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: Mouse ("I hates mieces to pieces") Keywords: joysticks? Message-ID: <1991Mar18.193231.11330@wam.umd.edu> Date: 18 Mar 91 19:32:31 GMT References: Sender: usenet@wam.umd.edu (USENET Posting) Organization: University of Maryland at College Park Lines: 40 Nntp-Posting-Host: avw I don't know, Solarian II (a Galaxian-like game, but much better) is controlled with the mouse, and I think it's great. Also look at Crystal Quest. I can't imagine playing it with a joystick. Seriously, though, there are a couple of joystick possibilities on the Mac. One is the Mouse Stick by Gravis. (They also make a 3-button mouse, if I remember right.) There's also a relatively recent thing called the Goldbrick (I don't remember who makes it) which is essentially a Nintendo-to-ADB adaptor. With it, you can plug any Nintendo controller into your Mac. I've never seen one, though, so I don't know how well it works. The problem, however, is that virtually no games support joysticks. The reason for this is that almost nobody has a joystick for their Mac. So game writers say to themselves, "Why should I bother writing in joystick control, which would make ten people happy, when I could write better mouse control instead, which would make millions of people happy?" (All right, I'm exaggerating the numbers. :) It's a matter of cost-benefit analysis. Now, if Apple were to make their own joystick, then there would be a standard, and lots of people would write joystick-controlled games. It's been rumoured that they are going to do this, but that's probably a year or two off. Really, the commercial game market on the Mac is pretty thin relative to, say, the ST or Amiga (or just about any other personal computer, for that matter). This is largely because (remember to count to ten before pushing "f", now :) Apple has been pushing the Mac as a business machine for years. The mere existence of an Apple joystick (not to mention lots of games) would tend to make "serious" business types turn up their metaphorical noses. Just look at the Amiga. For years, it has labored under the image of "great game machine, but don't try to any _real_ work with it." Also, the main consumers of games are young folks, who are notorious for not having much money. The Mac is (or was, depending on who you talk to) a relatively expensive machine, which means it generally winds up in the hands of rich business types who aren't particularly interested in using their $5K computer to waste out with Super Mario Brothers 12. The existence of the Classic and LC should help the game market out, but I suspect Apple would have to introduce an under-$1000, color Mac _with joy- stick included_ before the game market would really take off. Chris Nebel nebel@wam.umd.edu