Joystick

A joystick is just like a mouse, but in a mouse the cursor stops moving when you stop moving the mouse. With a joystick, the pointer keeps on moving in the direction the joystick is signaling. To stop the pointer, return the joystick to its upright position. Most joysticks consist of two buttons called triggers. Joysticks are mostly used for computer games, but occasionally, they are used for CAD/CAM systems and other applications as well.  Joystick sounds to be an interesting device. Isn’t it? So, scroll down and gain more information about this stick of joy.

Features of Joystick

Joysticks are all loaded with great features to suit various needs. Check out these fantastic features in following lines-

1. Most joysticks are two-dimensional. They have two axes of movement but one and three-dimensional joysticks also exist. A joystick is usually configured so that moving the stick left or right indicates the movement along the X axis and moving it forward (up) or back (down) signals the movement along the Y axis. Joysticks that are configured for three-dimensional movement, movement along the Z axis is signaled by twisting the stick left (counter-clockwise) or right (clockwise). These three axes - X Y and Z are, in relation to a roll, an aircraft, yaw and pitch.

2. An analog Joystick has continuous states, i.e. it returns an angle measure of the movement in any direction in the space or plane (generally using potentiometers). A digital joystick offers only on/off signals for four different directions and automatically possible combinations. Digital joysticks were very common as game controllers for the video game consoles, arcade machines and home computers of the 8^th decade of past century.

3. Additionally joysticks frequently have one or more fire buttons, used to trigger some kind of action. These are simple on/off switches.

4. Some joysticks have haptic feedback potential. Thus, these are active devices, not only input devices. The computer can return an indication to the joystick that causes it to stand firm against the movement with a returning force or make the joystick vibrate.

5. Maximum I/O interface cards for PCs have a joystick (game control) port. New joysticks mostly use a USB interface for connection to the PC.

Variety of Joystick

1. Among variety of Joysticks, two major types of joysticks rule the market- wired joystick and a wireless joystick.

2. Special joysticks for right or left handed people are available. They can be fitted with the preferred control options.

How Joystick Works

Joysticks pull off an actually neat trick. They take something completely physical, i.e. the movement of your hand and translate it into something exclusively mathematical. It is just like a string of ones and zeros (the computer language). With a high-quality joystick, the translation is so perfect that you completely forget about it. When you are really engaged in a game, you feel like you are interacting directly with the virtual world.

Joysticks are ergonomically designed. Such joysticks suit the shape of the human hand. This helps in using the gadget for longer period of time and reduces the risk of hand or wrist problems. So, get a joystick for you and experience the magic of this device.