Why is there only one fire button ?

[Mpk]

In parallel to the ongoing heated debate about the best keys to use, can anyone explain why the standard for the Speccy was to have just a single fire button on a joystick. This seems to be the case on the other 8-bit micros as well.

This was and remains the single biggest issue with game design on the system - even brand new games like Hakkenkast fall afoul of it.

Why not more buttons? There are, I reckon, 8 bits getting sent, and just 5 states being checked ( directions + fire ) so there should be room for another *counts on fingers* 3 buttons! Even on older systems like Atari, they still had 8 bits to work with.

Were buttons just expensive back then? Why did Kempston and Sinclair and the rest all settle for 1 measly fire button?

[Nitrowing]

https://www.retrocastaway.com/retro-gam ... t-2-turbo/

[Vampyre]

I've always wondered about this as well. So many titles could have benefited hugely from having two separate fire buttons.

[PeteProdge]

It's just the way it was back then. You have to remember, the ZX Spectrum came out in early 1982 and that's not all that far off from the Atari 2600 and similar consoles.

Arcade games of that time were typically single fire button affairs, or in some cases, not even having a fire button!

At that time, you couldn't really conceive of the modern gaming evolution, where we have analogue sticks, shoulder buttons and triggers, thumb clicks, etc. That's science fiction!

The single button set-up was suited for the arcade knock-offs trying to be Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Defender, Asteroids, etc, and it worked for its time. Sure, secondary and tertiary action buttons came along by the mid-1980s, leaving nearly 8-bit computers on the back foot, but how do you introduce that to the home computing market back then?

"Here's a game with three action buttons I've coded, erm, yeah, it'll need an expensive I/O interface and this special joystick to be used."

[1024MAK]

History is the answer.

The joystick port ‘standard” comes from the port provided on Atari’s 2600 system. Details of what became known as the Atari Joystick Port are here. Note that there is only one Trigger (fire) button input (on pin 6).

Both the Atari joysticks and the third party joysticks hence only had one fire button, or if they had more, all fire/trigger buttons were electrically connected in parallel (together).

Some modern Kempston compatible joystick interfaces do offer two or three fire button inputs. How many joysticks support two or three independent fire buttons I don’t know.

Mark

[Solaris104]

Some kempston interfaces support 2 buttons (pin 9 - fire 2). Velesoft patched Green Beret and Commando for 2 button .

[catmeows]

Because Atari one button joystick was defacto standard. That means you didn't need to manufacture your own version of joystick as there were third party companies making atari compatible joysticks. Besides, being compatible with atari would be praised by reviewers in contemporary mags.
Not like everybody thought that one fire button is enough, for example intellivision had much more buttons.
Also note that atari port has 5 pins for joystick and another two pins for analog paddle. Later, some systems repurposed the two analog pins for second and third fire buttons.

[Mpk]

The single button set-up was suited for the arcade knock-offs trying to be Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Defender, Asteroids,

Defender had 3 buttons in 1981 - Fire, Smart Bomb and Hyperspace. ( Plus thrust and reverse, which map to left and right, really. )
Scramble had seperate Fire and Bomb buttons
Even Asteroids had thrust, fire and hyperspace.
All 3 were big hits at the time.

I had assumed that lack of foresight was the issue, and maybe the people designing the hardware just weren't playing a lot of games. I was just wondering if there was any technical issue behind it.
Would support for 2 players have had any impact?

https://www.retrocastaway.com/retro-gam ... t-2-turbo/

Two buttons, but only 1 button function. I don't think that turbofire counts, or indeed that it ever worked worth a damn.

[Sol_HSA]

The joystick port ‘standard” comes from the port provided on Atari’s 2600 system. Details of what became known as the Atari Joystick Port are here.

Kinda pity that the paddle a / paddle b did not evolve into an analog xy joystick. =)

[Joefish]

The COMCON interface supported a second fire button, and they sold their own customised version of the Quickshot II joystick to use with it.
They sold a lot less of their interface than Kempston Microelectronics did, never mind all their clones.

[cj7hawk]

The ZX Spectrum had 1 fire button on the joystick, and 40 fire buttons on the console.

[1024MAK]

I was just wondering if there was any technical issue behind it.

For the Kempston and compatible interfaces, some (but far from all) use a chip that can handle 8 digital inputs. The three spare inputs (for bits 5, 6 and 8) are connected to always produce a logic 0 when read by the Z80A. It would have just required two of these three lines to be connected to the 9 way D connector, then there could have been three trigger/fire or auxiliary buttons. Some designs may have needed two extra resistors.

The other main variant/design of Kempston and compatible interfaces use chips that can only handle 6 digital inputs. The ‘spare’ input often being used with some diodes to provide logic 0 for data bits 5, 6 and 8, or a variation of this.

So it was technically possible for Kempston and compatible interfaces. The price difference between the two different types of chips may have added maybe a £1 to the selling price.

The other main competitor to Kempston before Sinclair got involved, was the Cursor type joystick interfaces. Again, technically it would have been possible with these.

The Sinclair Interface 2 used a custom chip. It is not easy to add any extra inputs due to the design. However, the trigger/fire button inputs for both ports could have been routed to both connectors. So a single joystick with two buttons could operate the trigger/fire button inputs for either the left hand or right hand port.

Similarly in other computers, technically, it may have been possible. But it’s specific to each model. In some it may have required an extra chip, which would have made more of a difference in price. However, as nearly all joysticks that were available only had a single trigger/fire function, spending money providing these extra inputs was unlikely to happen.

While on the subject, most joystick interfaces did not provide a +5V on the joystick ports either. This limited using the joystick port for auto fire joysticks and other devices that could have used the joystick port, such as mice and other input devices. Although later versions/types did include this.

As I said earlier, the main driver as to what became available, was to support the common joysticks that were available. Hence we end up the the lowest common denominator as the “standard”.

Mark

[1024MAK]

Kinda pity that the paddle a / paddle b did not evolve into an analog xy joystick. =)

If, and it’s a very big if, the Kempston and compatible joystick interfaces had provided three trigger/fire button inputs and a +5V supply, it would have been possible to have a simple analogue to digital converter to enable a paddle or analogue joystick to be used.

Or 7 button key pads or game pads. Plus other possibilities…

Mark

[AndyC]

I think we can all agree it was Atari's fault. If they just used the Xbox controller, we'd have all been better off.

[catmeows]

Well, NES controller would be enough. Btw. it is very smart design inside.

[PeteProdge]

I think we can all agree it was Atari's fault. If they just used the Xbox controller, we'd have all been better off.

PlayStation controller > XBox controller.

That is the only playground-style argument I'll ever have about modern gaming. I'm platform agnostic, but you'll pry this DualShock out of my cold dead hands. I use it for loads of emulated gaming systems if I'm in front of the telly and a Raspberry Pi. (Otherwise it's always keys when emulating the Speccy on a PC.)

[Pobulous]

PlayStation controller > XBox controller.

That is the only playground-style argument I'll ever have about modern gaming. I'm platform agnostic, but you'll pry this DualShock out of my cold dead hands. I use it for loads of emulated gaming systems if I'm in front of the telly and a Raspberry Pi. (Otherwise it's always keys when emulating the Speccy on a PC.)

Playstation and Xbox controllers are a big compromise, though, I'd rather have the right tool for the job:
Arcade stick for arcade games
Wheel and pedals for driving games
Keyboard and mouse for FPS
Light gun for Op Wolf type games
Spinner for bat and ball games

Dual analogs are good for twin stick games that support 360 degrees aiming and movement


Back on topic
There were a lot of controllers back in the day that had number pads on the controllers, and plenty of arcade games had multiple buttons.
I think the living room aesthetic of the early consoles meant that controllers had to be handheld, rather than like portable arcade consoles, which was a real shame as I'm sure most of us sat at desks.

[Sol_HSA]

I think we can all agree it was Atari's fault. If they just used the Xbox controller, we'd have all been better off.

Sinclair went and made their own, incompatible pinout for the same joystick plug, and did not fix the "single fire button" issue while they were at it. Just sayin'.

[8BitAG]

It's not like there wasn't a secondary device in easy reach which had forty buttons on it.

[AndyC]

Sinclair went and made their own, incompatible pinout for the same joystick plug, and did not fix the "single fire button" issue while they were at it. Just sayin'.

The even weirder thing about that is that the Amstrad CPC did officially support two fire buttons (with normal Atari pinout) and was actually wired up for three buttons (at least until the Plus range came out). There still weren't really any joysticks out there that offered it though, so games took no advantage (until the Plus range came with a two button gamepad by default)

[Morkin]

Spinner for bat and ball games

Did anyone find it easy to use arcade spinner-type controls?

I remember seeing rotators/balls for some arcade games (like Arkanoid, and I think Tron had one too). I was absolutely hopeless at using them. They felt like very unfamiliar controls for someone used to joysticks. I tried to practice for a bit but they just seemed too difficult to master.

[Lee Bee]

My favourite console controllers are SNES and GameCube

[AndyC]

It's not like there wasn't a secondary device in easy reach which had forty buttons on it.

I always thought that and, given I mostly played using keyboard controls anyway, didn't think it was a big deal. Over the years though, I've heard many people say that tended to have the computer near the telly and would sit back some distance away with a long joystick lead (like most people's modern console setup) so not being able to control everything from the joystick would certainly get annoying.

[1024MAK]

Sinclair went and made their own, incompatible pinout for the same joystick plug, and did not fix the "single fire button" issue while they were at it. Just sayin'.

No, the joystick ports on the Sinclair Interface 2 were Atari standard, hence normal joysticks worked fine.

It was Amstrad who put the crazy incompatible pinout in place on the +2, +2A, +2B, +3 etc. This despite their CPC having a single joystick port where you can plug one Atari standard joystick in. You do need an adapter if you want to plug two joysticks in.

Mark

[Timmy]

This was and remains the single biggest issue with game design on the system - even brand new games like Hakkenkast fall afoul of it.

That's not a game design issue, but a game design feature. I've played so many Spectrum games, and I can say that at least 99% of them requires the keyboard at least once. (Even my own games, I realised much later, requires a keyboard press at least once.)

And because most games requires a keyboard, the games are much more sophisticated than the console ones. Try playing Cybernoid on the NES with only 4 buttons; it's a disaster. Or a text adventure. Or a strategy game like Rebelstar on the console; it's very different (There is a Rebelstar game on the GBA, by the way. It wasn't very successful, somehow.)