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If
IBM had included a gaming port with their PC-XT and -AT
machines, it's highly possible that machines today would
come with joysticks (or "gaming devices") as standard
equipment. But IBM was snooty and, besides ceding a large
chunk of its market to the Commodore 64 as a result,
set PC
gaming back a generation. Apparently joysticks, like color
graphics cards and sound cards, didn't fit with IBM's
button-down world paradigm. God knows it didn't take
companies like Creative Labs, Hercules, Matrox, and Roland
much time to leap into the void, but that's the reason why
'80s IBM users had to spend so much time cursing over
compatible sound and graphics cards. (Ironically, the PC 98
standards called for game adapters on all "Entertainment
PCs," so those are grudgingly becoming a standard.) The most
common type of gaming device is the joystick, in all its
many varieties. Newer offerings are purely digital,
eschewing the mechanics of the old joystick for faster, more
precise digital throughput; even better, most digital sticks
don't require recalibration. If you have a joystick
connected to your PC, you should show a Joystick icon in the
Control Panel. Double-click this and you'll see a chance to
test the stick. Click the Test button. Then move the stick
to see the small plus sign move in the position test area.
Next, press the buttons and see if the Button 1 and Button 2
areas highlight. This testing only applies to the stick's
use in Windows games, not DOS games. Note: Win ME gives you
a Gaming Options applet in Control Panel that makes it easy
to set up joysticks, flight sticks, steering wheels, and
other game input devices.
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