 Picture a gamepad, you know, kind of wide, two handles, two thumbsticks, some face buttons, a D-pad, and some shoulder buttons too. That's basically every controller ever at this point, right? But what if I told you that not only did some foresee this future over 20 years ago, we hit a lot of wacky potholes on the road to modern perfection. So come along and learn about some of gaming's most interesting controllers. Some look normal, others... not so much. It's normal to stick around through the sponsor spots like these though for iFixit. From iPhones to Nintendo switches, iFixit has your repair needs covered with their lineup of fix kits. Find out how iFixit can help you repair your devices at the end of this video. There's no shortage of fodder for a video like this. So for today, we'll be ignoring intentionally weird controllers like chainsaws, katanas, and hip-hop logos. And instead we're gonna be sticking with some more technically and historically interesting specimens, starting with the most historically interesting of the bunch. This absolute unit is called the XE1-AP, developed by Dempa Micomsoft in 1989 for the Sega Mega Drive and MSX compatible home computers. They're still around by the way. One of their most famous products was actually the Framemeister, which has sadly been discontinued. The XE1-AP notably served as the inspiration for Sega's 3D control pad for Saturn, which in turn was made into the Dreamcast controller, which inspired the original Xbox controller. Don't believe me? Check out these concept sketches from Xbox co-creator, Shamus Blacklight. That's right. You can trace the modern Xbox controller all the way back to this thing. But, uh, it's substantially bigger than even the Duke. So how the heck do you even hold this thing? What works best for me is index and middle fingers on the shoulder buttons, thumbs on the sticks, and ring and pinky fingers holding the grips. It's not the most ergonomic setup in the world, but considering this had never been done before, it's not bad. That's right. Not only was this the first use of an analog thumbstick as we know them today on a controller, it was the first use of shoulder buttons and grips too, predating the Super Nintendo by a year, the N64 by six years, and the DualShock by eight years. Now, true 3D games weren't a thing on the MSX or Mega Drive in 1989, but Sega's 3D-like arcade games used analog controls. And home consoles didn't have analog controls. So, Dempa made their own. The way the stick functions is shockingly simple. On the inside, the stem slips into two split half rings that overlap each other and connect to two potentiometers representing each axis. All that moving the joystick actually does is turn those potentiometers. The right stick only has one axis that serves as a throttle in most cases, and if you want to use it in a different orientation or even invert it, you can do that by simply twisting it. Neat. The controller itself has six face buttons, four switches, and four shoulder buttons. If you're keeping track at home, Sega pads at the time had four buttons and later seven buttons was the best you got. The two face buttons on the right share the A and B buttons with the shoulder buttons on the same side, and the buttons on the left shoulder handle C and D. Now, D isn't a normal button on the Sega Genesis controller, and while it shows up in the options menu, it doesn't actually do anything. The rest, I think, are for the MSX. A handful of Mega Drive games did support it, but because it didn't get released outside of Japan and the Mega Drive was well behind both Nintendo and NEC there, it didn't gain widespread support. Unlike orders from LTTstore.com, we got your back. While Dempa stuck to Japan, advanced Gravis computer technology, founded right here in British Columbia, was far more prolific in the West, specifically in the PC peripheral space, with the Gravis GamePad being the quintessential PC controller of its time. So much so that it was available for the Phillips CD-i, for better or worse. But the SNES-like GamePad, while historically significant and interesting with its flippable controls, isn't as interesting as the PlayStation-like GamePad Pro. While it was available in USB, the white GamePort version was special in what it did with a far more limited interface. I mean, look at it. Ten buttons. That alone is weird. Because the old PC GamePort can only support up to four axes and four buttons at best, half that at worst. How does it do it? Using what they called GRIP, or G-R-I-P, which, as French blogger Paul Comandie discovered, is a 5-bit I2C style interface using the first and second buttons for clock and data transfer. This means that not only does it only need up to 11 of the 15 pins on the port, it can theoretically support up to 11 buttons, 15 if you include the D-pad, and it can support multiple GamePads at once. Yeah, this was a big deal back in the day. Because of the way GamePorts worked, two controllers via a Y-splitter would be limited to two buttons each. But with GRIP, the second controller uses the buttons that would normally be used for the second controller for an additional serial connection. Gravis even made a four controller hub using this technique, with each controller having eight buttons. Get subscribed, by the way, because we're going to look at a keyboard that has this kind of plug-in approach to peripherals for it that you're not going to want to miss. If you're wondering why I care about all this GamePort nonsense, it's because the USB just didn't catch on for game controllers in the early days because, well, you didn't have all that many ports. Maybe you had two for your whole PC? Microsoft's Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro, probably the best joystick of its time, only supported the GamePort and also had a special mechanism created by Creative Labs to use the MIDI capabilities of the GamePort for bi-directional communication rather than the traditional joystick protocol. It's that bi-directional communication that made Force Feedback possible, something Microsoft was pushing pretty hard at the time. Unlike Nintendo's contemporary Rumble Pak, which had a vibrating motor like we're all familiar with in modern controllers, the Force Feedback Pro had directionality and texture to its impulses, actually shaking the stick in response to in-game action. While the GamePort was seriously old by the time Microsoft finally retired it with Windows Vista, the effort that went into extending and improving it with features like this isn't talked about too often nowadays, but they were vital in cultivating PC gaming around this time and led to big features we'd see come back later. Speaking of which, a friend of mine from junior high actually owned a Freestyle Pro, a boomerang-shaped monstrosity that had terrible D-pad but an extremely interesting analog control, Motion. Wikipedia describes it as similar to the six-axis controls found on PS3 and later Sony controllers, and I'd say that's about accurate. It was difficult to get used to back in the day, but it gave the controller a lot more utility than it'd have without it, and likely planted some seeds in future Sony engineers' minds. It straddled the line between USB and GamePort and was one of the many controllers of its time that hedged its bets by including a GamePort to USB adapter in the box. Microsoft had a lot of other wacky ideas in the pre-Xbox years, but few others truly caught on. Let's come back to the Sega days for our final controller. You ever get fatigued when playing games? You know, cramps, blisters, numb thumb? Well, the TurboTouch 360 from Triax is here to save the day. This was available on the NES, Genesis, and Super NES, and did away with Gunpei Yokoi's historic invention entirely, replacing it with this...thing. No need to push, they say. This technology breakthrough in video game control uses a capacitive touch sensor instead. Otherwise, it's pretty much a standard Genesis controller with nuclear yellow 90s styling and turbo switches. Clearly, Triax was confident in this technology, though, with their higher scores-of-your-money-back guarantee, as seen on TV-style marketing. So, hey, maybe it's better than a Lenon. So, compared to a regular controller, this gives you way finer control. Like, I can adjust the throttle any way I want. I can go pretty much wherever I want immediately on the screen. Whereas before, with a controller, doing that kind of stuff, like holding right here, would actually be kind of difficult. The thumbstick is really tall, actually, so that makes it a little bit awkward, aside from all the other things that make it awkward. But, uh, can't argue with the results. It works. Like, that's a pretty good first three stages, I think. But, yeah, holding it for extended periods of time like this, or at least holding it up like this, probably not the best idea. It's not ergonomically sound, and it is pretty, pretty heavy. But, yeah, I kind of feel like I'm just moving a mouse and clicking on stuff. This is ridiculously easy compared to using a gamepad with a regular D-pad. Alright, let's switch to the other controller, then. Let's start with a TurboTouch, see how this compares to the XE1AP. Uh, okay. Oh. Oh, no. Uh... I... yeah, this doesn't feel like I have any control at all, actually. I touch it, and it's... I mean, the controller works. I think my thumb is just too fat. It's, like, triggering multiple directions. But, hey, at least I didn't die for the first three stages. Significantly worse score. That's a thing. Yeah, like, I basically never get an opportunity to lock on and fire anything because I'm not actually able to point at anything. Yeah, I think there is something where I'm gonna probably have to open this up and tweak those potentiometers. Ugh. And if you rest your thumb on it, it's like, okay, it kind of works, but, like, now I'm constantly actuating something, so... I can't... I can't sweep my thumb in the kind of directions that they say you can, like circular motions are easier now. That doesn't feel like it's a thing. I... I don't know. It was not better than I let on. But, hey, that's not to say that the technology is bad, necessarily. We're seeing its descendants make its way into controllers like the DualSense and Steam's upcoming Steam Deck, so the idea that it was sound, it just... it's not good for this purpose. If you open it up, you can see the metal capacitive plates that you're actually interacting with under the D-pad, as well as potentiometers you can tweak to adjust their sensitivity if need be. It's a pretty complicated PCB compared to most controllers of the time, but unfortunately that didn't save it from bombing. It's conceivable you could get faster input if you got used to it, but at $15 more than a first-party controller, it was a steep ask to give up tactile feedback in the name of faster actuation. Come to think of it, gaming keyboards have been doing that for a while now, too. Maybe they were just too ahead of their time. There's far more controllers like these than we have time to talk about in one video. Like this Jet Fighter controller. And not all weird controllers are from the 90s. I just happen to own a few of them. Let us know what you think are the weirdest controllers, and maybe I can convince Linus to do another video like this one. But I don't need to convince him to let me do a sponsor segue to iFixit. Thanks to iFixit for sponsoring today's video. iFixit makes it affordable to fix or upgrade your devices using their custom fix kits. The Nintendo Switch has an all-in-one kit to fix Joy-Con Drip for only $19.99 US. They also have iPhone screen replacement kits from $74.99 US. All the kits come with all the parts you'll need to do your repairs. They include their precision bits, opening tools, and suction cups to make the installation as easy as possible. And you get repair guides by iFixit with clear photos and instructions to prevent getting lost when getting deep into the repair. Check out our link to iFixit down in the description to buy your kit today. Thanks for watching, guys. This was a different kind of video, so I don't really have a related video for you to look at. You know what? All of these should work in Linux with adapters. So go check out my how to install Linux video because it's getting way more relevant as the Steam Deck gets closer to release.