 A PCI based soundcard with a DA-15 connector The game port is the traditional connection for video game input devices on an x86-based PCs. The game port is usually integrated with a PC I/O or sound card, either ISA or PCI, or as an on-board feature of some motherboards. Image File history File links PCIsoundcard. ...
Image File history File links PCIsoundcard. ...
32-bit PCI expansion slots on a motherboard 64-bit PCI expansion slots inside a Power Macintosh G4 The Peripheral Component Interconnect standard (in practice almost always shortened to PCI) specifies a computer bus for attaching peripheral devices to a computer motherboard. ...
A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ...
x86 or 80x86 is the generic name of a microprocessor architecture first developed and manufactured by Intel. ...
A stylised illustration of a modern personal computer A personal computer (PC) is usually a microcomputer whose price, size, and capabilities make it suitable for personal usage. ...
This article is about the computer interface. ...
A Sound Blaster Live! Value card, a typical present-day PCI sound card. ...
Industry Standard Architecture (in practice almost always shortened to ISA) is a computer bus standard for IBM compatible computers. ...
32-bit PCI expansion slots on a motherboard 64-bit PCI expansion slots inside a Power Macintosh G4 The Peripheral Component Interconnect standard (in practice almost always shortened to PCI) specifies a computer bus for attaching peripheral devices to a computer motherboard. ...
An old Octek Jaguar V main board with an AMD 386DX-40 processor. ...
Other types of game controller connectors on the IBM-PC
The game port has been to some extent replaced by the Universal Serial Bus, which allows for better plug-and-play support, although it remains a popular choice for both analog joysticks and gamepads, as game port based controllers tend to be somewhat cheaper than USB-based ones. Earlier attempts to replace game port based controllers with e.g. parallel port, serial port or PS/2 ones had little success, until the introduction of the USB standard. The USB trident Icon The USB (Type A and B) Connectors A Male USB plug (Type A) Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a serial bus standard for connecting devices. ...
Plug and Play is a term used in the computer field to describe a computers ability to have new devices, normally peripherals, added to it without having to restart the computer. ...
For other uses, see Joystick (disambiguation). ...
A gamepad, also called joypad or control pad, is a type of game controller held with both hands where the thumbs are used to provide input. ...
In computing, a parallel port is an interface from a computer system where data are transferred in or out in parallel, that is, on more than one wire. ...
A male DE-9 serial port on the rear panel of a PC. A male serial port on a laptop computer. ...
PS/2 can refer to: IBM Personal System/2, a series of post-PC computers sold by IBM starting in 1987. ...
The USB trident Icon The USB (Type A and B) Connectors A Male USB plug (Type A) Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a serial bus standard for connecting devices. ...
MIDI connectors Game ports use DA-15 connectors (commonly but incorrectly known as DB-15 connectors), and usually double as connectors for MIDI instruments. To use a game port with MIDI instruments, one had to obtain an unusual cable with both DA-15 and 5-pin DIN connectors (similar to old-style pre-PS/2 keyboard connectors known as Baby AT or AT5 connectors). The drivers and hardware for the game port midi capabilities are based around the now standard Roland MPU-401 midi interface (in UART mode only), and support most MPU-401 standard applications for Windows and DOS. A male DE-9 connector. ...
Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is a system designed to transmit information between electronic musical instruments. ...
PS/2 can refer to: IBM Personal System/2, a series of post-PC computers sold by IBM starting in 1987. ...
The Baby AT is a computer motherboard form factor that is smaller than the older AT form factor. ...
The MPU-401, where MPU stands for MIDI Processing Unit, is an important but now obsolescent standard for MIDI interfaces on the PC platform. ...
Gameport details
Analog interface Unlike other joystick connectors (and controllers) during the early days of home computing and game consoles, the game port is actually analog rather than digital, relying on some form of ADC to interpret joystick movements. Early IBM-PC manuals describe this port as suitable for connecting two analog paddles rather than joysticks. This approach has historically given the IBM-PC an advantage in simulation games, especially flight simulators, but on the other hand rendered the design and use of simpler arcade or console joysticks more complex and needlessly convoluted, apart from being essentially incompatible with any existent joystick interface, most notably the standard 9-pin Atari joysticks. An analog or analogue signal is any continuously variable signal. ...
This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...
An analog-to-digital converter (abbreviated ADC, A/D or A to D) is an electronic circuit that converts continuous signals to discrete digital numbers. ...
This article is about the boat propulsion implement, etc. ...
The IBM PCâ„¢ (Personal Computer), was the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. ...
Wooden mechanical horse simulator during WWI. A simulation is an imitation of some real thing, state of affairs, or process. ...
Interior Cockpit of a modern Flight Simulator A flight simulator is a system that tries to replicate, or simulate, the experience of flying an aircraft as closely and realistically as possible. ...
For the concept Atari (当ãŸã‚Š) in the board game of Go, see Atari (go term). ...
Acquisition and programming Also, while other joystick standards (such as Atari or NES joysticks) are very easy and straightforward to use by programmers, the game port requires careful programming and well-timed software interrupt triggering in order to read an input. This of course caused performance issues as reading the game port took a notable amount of CPU time, especially compared to systems with a 'normal' digital (TTL) joystick port. For the concept Atari (当ãŸã‚Š) in the board game of Go, see Atari (go term). ...
NES redirects here. ...
In computer science, an interrupt is a signal from a device which typically results in a (register) context switch: that is, the processor sets aside what its doing and does something else. ...
TTL is an elite band of men and boys that originate, live or are involved in the tadley bmx scene. ...
Circuits The typical implementation of a gameport uses a capacitor and a simple voltage comparator, which together form a sort of crude ramp-compare ADC, which needs to be periodically polled and reset at precise moments in order to read an input, something that needs to be done several times (generally above 30) per second in order to provide a responsive game input, and the actual acquisition frequency and value typically depend on the joystick's internal resistance, noise, CPU speed and the total joystick-capacitor's RC time constant. In electronics, a comparator is a device which compares two voltages or currents and switches its output to indicate which is larger. ...
An analog-to-digital converter (abbreviated ADC, A/D or A to D) is an electronic circuit that converts continuous signals to discrete digital numbers. ...
A resistor-capacitor circuit (RC circuit), or RC filter or RC network, is one of the simplest analogue infinite impulse response electronic filters. ...
Known issues Its analog nature has also been the cause of many problems e.g. all kinds of joysticks needed "calibration", even arcade-style ones since no game controller and no joystick produced the same measurements each time, but they were dependent on the exact way acquisition was made and even by the CPU's speed in some rather poor designs. Also, all kinds of PC Gameports suffer from electrical noise. Centipede by Atari is a typical example of a 1980s era arcade game. ...
CPU redirects here. ...
NOiSE is a one volume manga created by Tsutomu Nihei as a prequel to his acclaimed ten-volume work, Blame!. It offers some rather sketchy information concerning the Megastructures origins and initial size, as well as the origins of Silicon life. ...
The calibration procedure is still required at some phase, even under modern operating systems such as Windows XP and usually consists of moving the joystick around all of its axes in order to measure the maximum axis excursion values, no matter if the joystick uses analog signals (from potentiometers) or digital signals (using microswitches or contacts). USB joysticks do not require calibration, in general. An operating system (OS) is a software program that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer. ...
Windows XP is the name of a line of operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on general-purpose computer systems, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. ...
An analog or analogue signal is any variable signal continuous in both time and amplitude. ...
PCB mount potentiometers intended for infrequent adjustment; Also known astrimpots. The original meaning of the term potentiometer, which is still in use, is an apparatus used to measure the potential (or voltage) in a circuit by tapping off a portion of a known voltage from a resistive slide wire...
A digital signal is a signal that is both discrete and quantized. ...
This article is about electrical switches. ...
Look up Contact in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Note: USB may also mean upper sideband in radio. ...
In the days of DOS, each game using the gameport(s) had to do its own calibration, often each time the game started, and some poorly coded calibration routines even failed to work consistently and properly, rendering some joysticks unusable with some games. ‹ The template below has been proposed for deletion. ...
Extensions of the gameport capabilities Some advanced gameport joysticks support more than 4 buttons (e.g. 6 or 8) but typically require a special device driver for the 6 buttons to work properly, since the gameport doesn't have actual hardware support for more than 4 distinct buttons.
This can be overcome by either using some normally "unused" pins or changing the joystick's circuits (and related software) in order to read a 4-bit state code from the 4 button inputs, thus giving up to 16 button combinations (albeit with some limitations e.g. some buttons may not be held down) or a combination of both techniques. A state is an organized political community, occupying a territory, and possessing internal and external sovereignty, that enforces a monopoly on the use of force. ...
High-end gameport joysticks such as the Microsoft Sidewinder rely on multiplexing a proprietary data stream through the 4 standard button inputs and sometimes through the "unused" pins, achieving full support for a rather high number of buttons (e.g. 16 or 20) while special features such as daisychaining multiple joysticks, force feedback or joystick programming become possible in some cases. First-generation Microsoft Sidewinder Microsoft Sidewinder is the general name given to the family of digital game controllers developed by Microsoft for PCs. ...
In telecommunications, multiplexing (also muxing or MUXing) is the combining of two or more information channels onto a common transmission medium using hardware called a multiplexer or (MUX). ...
The elementary meaning of daisy chain is a garland created from the daisy flower, generally as a childrens game. ...
Haptic means pertaining to the technology of touch. ...
Computer programming (often simply programming) is the craft of implementing one or more interrelated abstract algorithms using a particular programming language to produce a concrete computer program. ...
The obvious drawback here is the need for using a special device driver in order to interpret the joystick input, and making its usage rather time consuming and operating system dependent, while the joystick is usually unusable without a special driver (unless multiple operating modes are supported). Windows XP loading drivers during a Safe Mode bootup A device driver, or a software driver is a specific type of computer software, typically developed to allow interaction with hardware devices. ...
An operating system (OS) is a software program that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer. ...
Some hardware and DIY enthusiasts have found ways to connect a wide array of input devices to the gameport and even found other applications for it e.g. voltage or current measurement, simple interfacing and data acquisition etc. Hardware is the general term that is used to describe physical artifacts of a technology. ...
See also: DIY Network, a cable TV network. ...
Various meters Measurement is the process of estimating the ratio of a magnitude of a quantity to a unit of the same type. ...
Interfacing is a common term for a variety of materials used on the unseen or wrong side of fabrics in sewing. ...
Data acquisition is the sampling of the real world to generate data that can be manipulated by a computer. ...
History and variants The original gameport design by IBM initially allowed four analog axes and four buttons on one port, allowing two joysticks or four paddles to be connected, although this required a special "Y-splitter" cable and isn't fully supported by some combined midi/game ports usually found on sound cards. Big Blue redirects here. ...
Some poorly implemented game ports (usually built-in on old motherboards and I/O cards) didn't fully support either 4 axes or 4 buttons, making only the use of a single 2-axis and 2-button joystick possible.
The 15-pin gameport which also acts as a midi port has been dropped from some newer PCs in favor of the USB port, while some motherboards still include it and allow to configure it as a MIDI port or a gameport, through their BIOS. In addition, Radio Shack has adaptors that allow older joysticks to utilize USB. Note: USB may also mean upper sideband in radio. ...
RadioShack Corporation (formerly Radio Shack) (NYSE: RSH) runs a chain of electronics retail stores in the United States, as well as parts of Europe. ...
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