D-pad
A D-pad (short for directional pad)[a] is a flat, typically thumb-operated, directional control. D-pads are found on nearly all modern gamepads, handheld game consoles, and audiovisual device remote controls. Because they operate using four internal push-buttons (arrayed at 90° angles), the vast majority of D-pads provide discrete, rather than continuous, directional options—typically limited to up, down, left, and right, and sometimes offering intermediate diagonals by means of two-button combinations.
Although D-pads offer less flexibility than analog sticks, they offer high accuracy and can be manipulated with minimal movement by the thumb. They require comparatively little maintenance and their minimal profile makes them ideal for portable devices.
D-pads have appeared on diverse forms of electronic equipment including
History
A precursor to the D-pad was the four directional buttons used in arcade video games such as Gremlin's Blockade (1976)[1] and SNK's Vanguard (1981).[2] A precursor to the standard D-pad on a video game console was used by the Intellivision, which was released by Mattel Electronics in 1980. The Intellivision's unique controller featured the first alternative to a joystick on a home console, a rotating circular pad that allowed for 16 directions of movement by pressing it with the thumb. A precursor to the D-pad also appeared on Entex's short lived "Select A Game" cartridge based handheld system; it featured non-connected raised left, right, up and down buttons aligned to the left of a row of action buttons. Similar directional buttons were also used on the Atari Game Brain, the unreleased precursor to the Atari 2600, and on some early dedicated game consoles such as the VideoMaster Star Chess game.[3] A controller similar to the D-pad appeared in 1981 on a handheld game system: Cosmic Hunter on Milton Bradley's Microvision; it featured four directional buttons around a fifth button in the center, all under a single rubber membrane.[4]
Initially intended to be a compact controller for the Game & Watch handheld games alongside the prior non-connected style pad, Nintendo realized that Yokoi's updated design would also be appropriate for regular consoles, and Nintendo made the D-pad the standard directional control for the hugely successful
In 1984, the Japanese company
Modern consoles, beginning with the Nintendo 64, provide both a D-pad and a compact thumb-operated analog stick; depending on the game, one type of control may be more appropriate than the other. In many cases with games that use a thumbstick, the D-pad is used as a set of extra buttons, all four usually centered on a kind of task, such as using items. Even without an analog stick, some software uses the D-pad's 8-directional capabilities to act as eight discrete buttons, not related to direction or on-screen movement at all. Jam Sessions for the Nintendo DS, for example, uses the D-pad to select music chords during play.
On non-gaming equipment
D-pads appear on a number of menu-driven devices as a simple navigational tool; though superficially similar to those used for gaming devices, they are not optimized for real-time control and therefore can usually accept input from only one direction at a time. Many, though not all, such designs include a trigger button in the center of the button arrangement, usually labeled
On remote control devices, the buttons on the D-pad function in the same manner as other buttons, and are generally used to navigate on-screen menus. Though initially not common, the quick success of the DVD format led to wide availability of remote designs with D-pads circa 2000, and most current menu-driven consumer electronics devices include some sort of D-pad on the remote (and, occasionally, on the unit itself).
In addition, many small computing and communications devices, particularly
Consoles with D-pads
Consoles with separate controllers
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Handheld consoles
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Patents
- U.S. patent 4,687,200 (expired in 2005) - Nintendo's multi-directional switch
See also
- Analog stick
- Arrow keys
- Hat switch)
Notes
References
- Killer List of Videogames
- Gamasutra
- ^ "Videomaster Star Chess". Ultimate Console Database. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
- about.com. Accessed on line June 7, 2010.
- ^ "Nintendo Wins Emmy For DS And Wii Engineering | Technology | Sky News". News.sky.com. 2008-01-09. Archived from the original on 2012-07-11. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
- ^ Magrino, Tom (2008-01-08). "CES '08: Nintendo wins second Emmy - News at GameSpot". Gamespot.com. Retrieved 2016-04-28.
- ^ "【任天堂「ファミコン」はこうして生まれた】 第7回:業務用機の仕様を家庭用に、LSIの開発から着手" [How the Famicom Was Born – Part 7: Deciding on the Specs]. Nikkei Electronics (in Japanese). Nikkei Business Publications. December 19, 1994. Archived from the original on October 12, 2008. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
- "Deciding on the Specs". GlitterBerri's Game Translations. April 21, 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-04-27.
- Imagine Media. March 1996. p. 35.
- ^ "Tiger Playmaker".
- ^ "Multiple dome switch assembly having pivotable common actuator".
- ^ "Tomy Tron".
- ^ "La GamePark GP2X F-200 enfin disponible pour 120€ - Le Journal du Numérique". Journaldunumerique.com. Archived from the original on 2010-07-30. Retrieved 2010-08-30.