wilmott@utopia.rutgers.edu (Ray Wilmott) (03/17/91)
--- I've been using a Mac at work for the past 4 years. Back in the days of the Mac Plus, I would never have wanted one at home. Why? Any computer I'm going to have at home I'm going to want to have fun with (games, graphics, sound) besides doing some real work on. That little black & white screen was out. Then came along the Mac II series. Great! Nice color graphics. But Forget about one for home because the price Apple was asking was outrageous. Now, with the LC (and even si), I'm thinking about getting a Mac for at home...to do a small amount of real work on, but 75% to have *fun* with. The question is, *CAN* you have fun with a Mac??? From the very limited amount of "fun" software I've seen at work, it seems that ALL games stick to the "standard" Mac format (ie - you *HAVE* to use the mouse to do anything). Now don't get me wrong...I use PageMaker, Excel and MacWrite at work all day, and I LOVE the mouse and the Mac interface for these things. But, come on, can anyone really *comfortably* play the likes of Space Invaders or ANY action/arcade game with a mouse? I personally find it ludicrous. So my question boils down to this...are there any type of joystick attachments for the Mac to be used with game software in place of the mouse? (and if not, why the hell not?) -Ray
nebel@wam.umd.edu (Chris D. Nebel) (03/19/91)
I don't know, Solarian II (a Galaxian-like game, but much better) is controlled with the mouse, and I think it's great. Also look at Crystal Quest. I can't imagine playing it with a joystick. Seriously, though, there are a couple of joystick possibilities on the Mac. One is the Mouse Stick by Gravis. (They also make a 3-button mouse, if I remember right.) There's also a relatively recent thing called the Goldbrick (I don't remember who makes it) which is essentially a Nintendo-to-ADB adaptor. With it, you can plug any Nintendo controller into your Mac. I've never seen one, though, so I don't know how well it works. The problem, however, is that virtually no games support joysticks. The reason for this is that almost nobody has a joystick for their Mac. So game writers say to themselves, "Why should I bother writing in joystick control, which would make ten people happy, when I could write better mouse control instead, which would make millions of people happy?" (All right, I'm exaggerating the numbers. :) It's a matter of cost-benefit analysis. Now, if Apple were to make their own joystick, then there would be a standard, and lots of people would write joystick-controlled games. It's been rumoured that they are going to do this, but that's probably a year or two off. Really, the commercial game market on the Mac is pretty thin relative to, say, the ST or Amiga (or just about any other personal computer, for that matter). This is largely because (remember to count to ten before pushing "f", now :) Apple has been pushing the Mac as a business machine for years. The mere existence of an Apple joystick (not to mention lots of games) would tend to make "serious" business types turn up their metaphorical noses. Just look at the Amiga. For years, it has labored under the image of "great game machine, but don't try to any _real_ work with it." Also, the main consumers of games are young folks, who are notorious for not having much money. The Mac is (or was, depending on who you talk to) a relatively expensive machine, which means it generally winds up in the hands of rich business types who aren't particularly interested in using their $5K computer to waste out with Super Mario Brothers 12. The existence of the Classic and LC should help the game market out, but I suspect Apple would have to introduce an under-$1000, color Mac _with joy- stick included_ before the game market would really take off. Chris Nebel nebel@wam.umd.edu
ds4a@dalton.acc.Virginia.EDU (Dale Southard) (03/20/91)
In article <1991Mar18.193231.11330@wam.umd.edu> nebel@wam.umd.edu (Chris D. Nebel) writes: >The problem, however, is that virtually no games support joysticks. The reason >for this is that almost nobody has a joystick for their Mac. So game writers >say to themselves, "Why should I bother writing in joystick control, which >would make ten people happy, when I could write better mouse control instead, >which would make millions of people happy?" (All right, I'm exaggerating the >numbers. :) It's a matter of cost-benefit analysis. > Well, I hate to disagree, but... I own a Mach IV+ Joystick made by CH Products. I like it and Falcon is just about UNPLAYABLE without a joystick. If a program supports mouse control, then it supports joystick control as well, since both give the mac exactly the same type of input. I can move the mouse pointer with either the joy or the muse without touching a thing. In fact, I can move them it opposite directions at thsame time at watch them fight over the cursor :-). I use whichever (mouse or joy) seems to work the best for each program. If it is advantageous to get continuous movment it one direction --> Joystick. If absolute screen placement is desired --> mouse (or joysick with the dipswitches set for absolute screen position, rater than "relative moement". Yes, I would agree that there are few games (Falcon is the only one I have seen, but I don't own/play many games) with joysitck support built in. But, if they use the mouse for control, then a joystick will work as well. Just my 2 cents worth -- your opinions may differ. --> --> Dale UVa (ds4a@virginia.edu)