Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:17638 comp.periphs:1097
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ncar!oddjob!gargoyle!att!chinet!edlee
From: edlee@chinet.chi.il.us (Edward Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.periphs
Subject: Re: Using a Joystick instead of a Mouse
Keywords: Laptop
Message-ID: <6148@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 1 Aug 88 03:51:33 GMT
References: <6069@chinet.UUCP> <1129@gethen.UUCP>
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 36

In article <1129@gethen.UUCP> isaac@gethen.UUCP (Isaac Rabinovitch) writes:
>In article <6069@chinet.UUCP>, edlee@chinet.UUCP (Edward Lee) writes:
>> 
>>   Have any of you plugged an Atari joystick into the serial port and used it
>>   instead of a mouse?  Doing so would make playing some games easier.

>I've no doubt it can be done, but my advice is, Forget it!  In
>mouse-oriented applications you need to have the cursor on *just* the
>right spot for a fraction of second while you press the button.
>Painfully difficult with a joystick, especially at the edge of the
>screen.  I speak from experience:  I used to have an Apple II, and tried
>to run a couple of programs (Chipwits and Sundog) that were originally
>designed to be used with a mouse but adapted for the joystick in the
>Apple II versions.  *Quite* painful.


I also speak from experience.  In my original posting, I mentioned
games.  I had Flight Simulator, Jet, and other software in mind
that would be more comfortable to play with a joystick.  The mouse
doesn't have to be completely replaced by the joystick, but the
joystick is better than the mouse for certain applications, and
vice versa.

I've played Flight Simulator before with only the keyboard, and I
didn't like the fact that the plane would keep making steeper and
steeper turns unless the player manually pressed the center key.
I would like to use a joystick along with a keyboard to play
Flight Simulator on my Toshiba laptop computer.

With regard to editing graphics screens with a mouse versus a joystick,
it would be less of a problem to use a joystick if the editing software
had a zoom function, as in Doodle! for the Commodore 64, that would
allow the user to edit full-sized characters that would each correspond
to a pixel on the unmagnified graphics screen.


-Ed L