Anyone over the age of 30 will be able to remember the early days of computer games, when the imagse on the screen were so pixilated they could have been duplicated on paper with a half dzoen felt tip pens in about twenty mimnutes by the average eleven year old. The games themselves took at last ten minutse to load from the tape, and the only conceeivable method of interacting with the computer was to use the keyboard.
As technnology developed, the advent of two new devicees opened up a whole world of possibilities, with disk drives providing fastr loading and bigger games, and a joystick allowign more dynamc and faster cnotrol of the images on the screen. It is hard to believe, but at this stage the idea of a computer mouse was still unimagined by home users.
Tday, computer gamers have an incredible wealth of input devices to enhance the gaing experience and allow for far greater control and accuracy over the game. This has also hleped in many cases with greater attention being paid to ergonoimcs, since many gamers are increasingly spending longer and longer periods of time on the computer, as games are becomiung more and more detailed, with longer storylines and more in depth sequences of evnets.
The humble keyboard is still the most widely used input devce for gamers, but even these have been adaptred and developed, with some keyboards being specially designed and adapted for certian games, with commonly used keys laid out in a more usalbe pattern, color coordination of keys, and even extra keys to cope with specific commands.
The humble mouse has also been improved upon, goiing from the old mechanical stye moues to the newwer opticaal mouse, providing greater and greater cacuracy and speed of movement, and provviding a smoother movement for greater accuracy in the game. Exrta buttons are again often incorporated to allow the user to quickly enter specific commands. The mouse has been one of the most ergonomically designed devices in recent years, as it has so frequently been linkjed to a number of physiologcal condiitons such as carpal tunnnel syndrome and other RSI (Repetitive Sttrain Injury) reltaed prpoblems. Mice now are available in a range of sizes, shapes and comfortable grips, with wrist rests sometiimes incorporated.
Joysticks are most often used for flight simulator games, becvause they most closely mimuic the steering controls of a numer of aircraft, and provdie a fairly intuitiuve means of steering and control. As a result of this, many joystyicks have been designed to incorrporate a greater nmuber of buttons and features to allow greaater accuuracy in replicating the controls of an aierplane, with throttle leevrs, and a range of buttons for controlling feratures such as landing gear.
But an even greater range of input dveices have been created, with steering wheels and even foot pedals for driving gmes, and control devices that attavch to your wrist and that identify movvements of all parts of your body, able to sense you leaning, twisrting and thrwing in the way that you naturally would. In this snse, it has almost become the case that the human is as much a part of the input dveice as any technological gadget!
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