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From: rubin@watson.ibm.com (Bill Rubin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.laptops
Subject: Re: Serial Port Joystick?
Message-ID: <1991Apr2.193759.13514@watson.ibm.com>
Date: 2 Apr 91 19:37:59 GMT
Sender: news@watson.ibm.com (NNTP News Poster)
Distribution: comp
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
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In <6757@cyclamen2.UUCP> robinson@motcid.UUCP (Steve Robinson) writes:

> I have recently purchased a Data General laptop computer.  I have a
> [old] game that is best played with a joystick.  There is only one
> problem.  The laptop does not have a game port and the expansion
> slots are proprietary (or at least not standard slots) so an
> off-the-shelf game port can not be added.
>
> Does anyone know of a joystick that works off of a normal serial
> port?  Obviously there would also have to be driver software also.
> Assuming that a serial joystick exists, would it work with my game
> or would there be interface problems?

I'd also be very interested to hear about this, but I believe the answer
is there is no such animal. My understanding is that joysticks are very
hardware dependant, and they need the special cards that they hook into.
This is unfortunate, since it means that MCA joysticks cost lots more than
regular joysticks.

I'd love to be proved wrong.

-- Bill
rubin@watson.ibm.com