PART ONE: WHAT IS IT?

When the Atari 5200 was released in late 1982, it was an attempt by Atari to match the ColecoVision.

As a result, it had a good number of arcade-to-home translations, including Atari arcade games (before mid-1984, "Atari" was a single huge company).

Unfortunately, Atari was to make a technical decision that really ended up hurting 5200 sales: the console was released with strange controllers which did not self-center, and were "analog," not "digital."

"Digital" simply means on or off. When you move a regular joystick controller in a particular direction, you activate a switch that allows current to go through. This tells the game that you are doing something. When you move diagonally, you are simply activating 2 such switches at the same time. The fire buttons work the same way.

"Analog," however, means not only on or off, but how much. A light switch with a dimmer is a perfect example of this. With the 5200 joystick, when you moved the stick in a particular direction, the game not only knew which direction the stick was moved, but by how much. This is very clear in Missile Command- move the stick a bit to the left, and the cursor moves a bit to the left, and then stays there. Move it more, and the cursor moves more. How far the cursor moves depends on how far you move the stick over.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a single arcade game from that era, to my knowledge, that had such a control scheme. Most had regular joystick controls; a few had trak-balls (Centipede, Missile Command) or paddles (such as Super Breakout). As a result, it was next to impossible to react very quickly, with short, precise moves. And while it did work moderately well for Missile Command, it just wasn't as good as paddle controls for Super Breakout.

It was just a rotten idea.