What is joystick used for?

Why is it called joystick?

The word joystick has been used since the 19th century, and was intended as a reference to the game controller.

Its origin is obscure, and there's some question about whether it actually refers to a specific object.

It came to be used as a metaphor for any input source around World War II, and it entered common usage in the 1960s. But as with many metaphors, its meaning changed over time. It came to refer to physical objects such as the joysticks of an arcade machine or a flight simulator. In computing, a joystick has also long been used to mean any control device that uses analog signal (which matches the meaning of its original meaning).

Why Joysticks Are Called That? Before we look into the history of joystick, we first need to figure out what the answer is to the question why it is called joystick? The reason why people called it a joystick was because, when played, the handle looks like a joystick and even the word has become used to describe the controller. It seems to me that this may lead us to the origin of the word, but there was nothing like a joystick before the early-mid 19th century. This means that the answer might be something else. However, what can we find out?

The Name Joystick is Not Unambiguous. At this point, we should say that there are a couple of potential candidates as to the origin of the name joystick for the control device. The reason for this ambiguity is that it is a word that can be used as both a noun and a verb. In some versions of English, it's an action, and in other versions it is a tool.

The word originated in the 19th century. We can use this to make assumptions about how it was used. It seems more likely to be a term used to describe a specific object rather than a group of objects, since it's not clear that the word could be used about a collection of any other objects.

If we go through history, we can see that joystick started being used in a figurative way. This usually happens at a certain time and then becomes common, so the most plausible time would be around World War II.

What is joystick used for?

I have a joystick that I used for years as a gamepad on my windows computer.

I no longer use the joystick and bought a PS2 controller.

Today I was thinking about the joystick that I used and wondering how it could be used in the real world. I always thought it was good for controlling an aircraft or helicopter using it's throttle and rudder. I also had a program to use it as a mouse or a light gun. Now I have a PS2 controller and wondered if it could be used for any of these tasks. If it is possible what type of program would I use?

The one thing that I do not want to do is get back on my old Windows 7 machine and download something like JoyControl because I have a feeling that it would mess up all the settings that I had already set up. Re: ? Originally Posted by szam. You would not need a joystick for that. You could instead use a throttle and rudder on a PC.

You would need an HID device. There is an extensive library of HID devices available for Linux. The joysticks are most likely controlled by a HID device.

Originally Posted by mccarley. Thanks for the replies. I think I'll just use the ps2 controller instead of the joystick and leave the joystick plugged in.

How do I use a joystick on my PC?

In all its history, no PC operating system has seen the light of day without being able to use a joystick.

Today, Windows provides the simplest way of setting up a joystick as part of a mouse-and-keyboard game controller: it asks for the model number of the joystick that you want to use, and places itself in the appropriate "JoyStick Input Devices" group in Control Panel under Hardware. But even that interface is not the only way to do so. Linux users can use inputattach to set up a joystick, and joydev to discover what they have. The Macintosh has support for using joysticks with applications written in the Cocoa framework. In this article, I'll look at the different ways of using joysticks on Windows, starting from using the one that is baked into Windows but ending up writing a tiny library called joysticks4me which is available for downloading.

There's some useful information about joysticks online, but for someone like me who doesn't really understand digital input I found it hard to find any in-depth descriptions of how joysticks work. So after trying out three different methods, I've included a summary of the pros and cons of each.

To test joysticks on Windows we need to use a program that isn't built in to Windows - one of many good reasons why Windows doesn't have a GUI for setting up joysticks. Using Control Panel. All joysticks must have model numbers, and Windows has a tool for finding out what the model number of an existing joystick is. Unfortunately, once you've found the model number, there's nothing much that you can do with it, because the Joystick Properties dialog box under the Joystick Input Devices group lets you set the driver name and description, and assign it to a driver group that you'd also like to be assigned, but then there's nothing more to be done. You can use this dialog box to add or remove the joystick device from the Control Panel.

Joystick drivers. Joysticks come in different sizes and types, with the most common type being Microsoft's ubiquitous XBOX style, which normally has six face buttons, two analog joysticks, and possibly a D-pad. The different joystick types may have different kinds of inputs: DirectInput : The standard kind, provided by Windows, DirectX and DirectPlay. All joystick models support DirectInput.

What is the advantage and disadvantage of joystick?

What is the purpose of joystick?

What is the best joystick controller and where to buy it? Why should you choose a certain joystick? How to assemble a joystick and how to disassemble? If you have never assembled a joystick before, you may be wondering what to do. So, today, we will explain the process of assembling a joystick, as well as disassemble a joystick. We will also tell you which kind of joystick is suitable for you.

Assembling a joystick. ?