Paddle (input device)
A paddle is an analog input device for computer and video games that is rarely used today . It essentially consists of a rotary control and one or more fire buttons . The rotary knob is mostly used to control a play object around an axis (e.g. the direction of movement of a car).
The word paddle means in English u. a. a table tennis racket. Since in the first successful video game Pong such a racket is controlled with a rotary knob, the name was transferred to the control device.
How it works: The rotary knob is usually connected to a potentiometer . A capacitor is charged in the connected computer via this . A counter runs at the same time. The position of the rotary knob can be determined from the time it takes for the capacitor to reach a certain voltage (i.e. from the count), because the higher the resistance, the longer it takes to charge. However, such a measurement only takes a few microseconds even at maximum resistance and can therefore be repeated very often. Analog joysticks , for example for the PC game port , work on the same principle.
Well-known video games that were controlled using paddles were, for example, pong , breakout , circus and night driver .
