Nintendo fingers
I belong to the chauffeured class… that is to say I can’t drive, and if you ever see me in a car, or on a bus, the chances are that I’m not the one in control.
I’ve never passed my test. I’ve never taken it either, and I’m not going to for a while yet.
Here’s my reasoning:
Cars were originally designed as pieces of complex machinery that operate entirely through the laws of physics… Now, they are becoming more like computers, operating through the laws of logic.
Digital systems are replacing the mechanical, analogue ones, disconnecting the driver from the actual mechanism. There will be a point where our cars become closer to computers than they are to machines… we already have motors powered by electricity rather than combustion, we’re already directed by a virtual navigator and processors are already taking charge of the things that humans are traditionally bad at.
And so, why keep the design of the old mechanical human interface device? What’s the point of turning a wheel that’s not really connected to anything?
It makes sense that the new interface should be one that today’s population are intimately familiar with… There was a time when turning wheels was all the rage. People had generally better upper-body strength as a result. Now, we don’t use wheels so much and we’re a little weedier, but that has come with the bonus of enhanced digital dexterity… game-pads are our wheel.
I can see it happening already, there are a growing number of buttons and switches surrounding the steering wheel as new gadgets and functions are added.
Previously, if you wanted to change the music in the car stereo you had to take your life into your hands and duck below the dashboard, eject the tape, select a new tape, insert the new tape and press play, all with one hand on the wheel. These days that can all be done with a switch, just behind the indicator.
It’s not a large jump to see these switches being used in a similar was to those on a game-pad, a device which has already evolved for optimum button placement.
So you can see why I’d want to wait a while, because soon someone will realise that we’re better at driving simulations than we are at driving and I’d really hate, after avoiding my test for so long, to have to take it twice in quick succession.
I’ll leave you with some models coming to a showroom near you.
Philip J Schadenfreude on 
The irony being that only last week, Nintendo released Mario Kart Wii with bundled stering wheel.
Although you’d probably be happy to discover that it’s had a decidedly middling reception.
And the Wii controller… now that’s a neat way to interface with a game system.
I had thought about that, but I still consider the videogame steering wheel to be a nostalgic item… I think, as you’ve said, that the recent reviews show that it’s not the best way to control a kart.
Similarly with the remote… it works well for the games that are designed to use it, but would be nothing more than a universal remote if used for wider applications (obviously that would be brilliant, but it’s doubtful that it would happen)…
…that said, if people master these devices then I see no reason why we can’t adopt them for general purposes.
The Wiimote is already being used to train surgeons and to help children with co-ordination problems… the sterring wheel can’t do that.
you have no idea how excited i am about that release!
you have no idea how excited i am for that release!
No no, we can tell, honest.
You think they’ll change the interface, or just cut out humans all together? Punch in your destination, andthe car gets you there.
Cars are about control… and freedom; the open road… it’s what appeals to us beyond its functionality. I doubt private systems will do away with the driver. Public transport however, that makes sense.
The predictable routes, constant provision and the lack of human liability must be appealing to transport companies.
I’m sure there are already ‘unmanned’ systems in operation, but I couldn’t find any clear examples.
Virginia Tech has been, for the last several years, developing a ’smart road’ with embedded thingamagigs to talk to the car (among other things it does)… it has the potential to turn into a driverless system eventually. Really, what this sort of thing will do is turn buses into things more like trolleys, just following a track.
http://www.vtti.vt.edu/virginiasmartroad.html
I still think that trams are under-utilised for that purpose. We have some great ones near here.
http://blackpooltrams.fotopic.net/
They’re cheap and easy to run, and whilst they aren’t fully automated (they still have a ‘driver’) they’re on a fixed route track.
But I think people have an inherent distrust of vehicles you don’t steer and of robots substituting a human, no matter what they are doing…
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/04/armed-robots-st.html
I think it’s probably reasonable to have a human driver on otherwise public transport, even if the only thing they’re there for is to indiscriminately tear out wires to make the thing stop in the event of a malfunction.
As it is, planes already aparrently practically fly themselves- I seem to remember some quote where in the future, planes will be manned by one man and one dog- the man’s job is to feed the dog, and the dog’s to bite the man if he touches anything.
Yeah, but not an NES pad. I appreciate the classic design but the modern Playstation analog pad is far more effective and practical. That or the Sega Saturn 3D Pad (designed originally for NiGHTS), which was at the time probably the best controller around, though the Playstation’s introduction of the Dual Shock pushed it over the top, I think (not that a vibration function would necessarily be useful for driving an actual car).
Also I must say that Game Pad history link seems pretty inaccurate (at least once it gets up to the Genesis/SNES period, up to that point I’m too young to have been paying attention). For one thing they don’t have pictures of the stock controllers for the Saturn, SNES, Dreamcast, or the PSX Analog or Dual Shock, nor the Saturn 3D Pad. Also they didn’t even mention the Game Gear or any of the competing portable systems.
I agree with that… analogue is proably best to control a car, the system demands degrees of turning. I just made it a NES pad since it’s the only one I can draw from memory… that and in an ideal world it would be good enough.
That said, dual shock might be good for helping people park – as a warning before they hit something.
As for the history, oddly every history I looked at online was rather incomplete… The Wiki entry is terrible… all of them miss out the hand-helds, the lynx and Jaguar consoles get short changed and I have yet to see the standard SNES controller appear anywhere.
They also seem reluctant to mention the DS with its touch screen functionality.
And that’s not including all of the perepherals for the home and arcade machines that they missed out too.
You drew that from memory? I’m now impressed.
Yeah, it’s great, I can never remember telephone numbers, or where I left my glasses, but there are somethings burned onto my brain, the NES controller being one of them.
The music to the videogame ‘Turrican’.
And ‘Breakfast of Champions’ by Kurt Vonnegut.
Oh! Turrican! That music was like a virus!
And Breakfast of Champions! I’m constantly stealing from that book!
I mis-read that as ‘I’m constantly stealing that book’.
then I speant at least a couple of minutes thinking what exactly do you do with your copies…
I’d probably stack them. If I lined the walls with them it might make for better sound insulation.
And, if Vonnegut is anything to go by, it should also filter out any incoming dumbness.
How often I hear this argument! You’re forgetting one thing, though….the playstation controller is far from ergonomic. In fact, the reason I’m not a gamer is because I haven’t yet found a controller that is designed to not strain one’s wrists. Having tendonitis, I am very supportive of non-vg controllers in things like cars. My wrists take enough punishment as it is with all the typing I do.
I’ve heard of a few cars that use joysticks to operate. Tho I think they never left car show/conceptual stage.
I love driving, I love driving fast, and it feels nice to do it with a steering wheel and gear stick.
Gear paddles are nice, but kinda feel disonnected from things, tho I guess a sequential gearbox is a bit different from a standard one.
I think there are a few ’sticks on the road, mosty for disabled drivers.
I can see the merit in driving an old-fasioned, computerless cars for pleasure… It’s sort of like drawing comics by hand rather than using the computerised tools to hand.
ugh, sorry double post
No problem. You seem rather excited… by Mario Kart?
Must say I do love that game, though Ms-Em usually gives me a sound thrashing at it.
oh, oh i am quite excited. by mario kart. i mean, we got a wii soon after they were released here and we loved it, and we also own the last two versions of mario kart and let me tell you, it is an competition in our household! its possibly the game we own that we’ve played the most. even without the new techonology, new tracks (perhaps ones that we couldnt do with our eyes shut) are a very exciting prospect.
It’s bad when you can race without looking, even the mirrored tracks…
just before Double-Dash was released I went to the ECTS show, where nintendo had set up a trailer full of their new games, and just behind it was a mock-up racetrack with karts on it… each cart had a little screen and a joypad… turned out to be a 6-player network of Mario Kart, much fun was had.
Driving simulations make me sick.
I get motion sickness really easy.
I need a wheel to hang onto.
I like making my own vroom
vroom vroom noises anyway.
I already use buttons to control my speed on the highway. (cruise)
Man, that reminds me that I still have to take my driving test… -sigh-
If cars used Dualshocks, Id be a stunt driver by now.
I was just thinking the exact same thing a few weeks ago. I’d get my drivers license right away if I could control cars with a game controller. Until then, I’m just too lazy I guess. That, and driving cars doesn’t seem to interest me too much…
I’m also holding out for the flying cars.
Flying car? Thatll never work! Now, personal spaceships that dont cost billions of dollars and take a lot of people to crew and go fast enough so that a trip to a local area like Mars doesnt take months to years and doesnt consume gas that costs by the millions and etc…, theres an idea worth investing in!
-sniff… why must reality be so unfair?-
-Alexeon
(Hoping for a real drop in spaceship prices, a real climb in spaceship quality and technology, and flying cars, which are always cool)
[...] who has done video game strips, though- Adam at The Flowfield Unity. In fact, he’s done twice as many as I have. Check out the hand-drawn sprites in that second [...]
I fully agree with this, as a city dweller, I never got certified to drive, and use my passport as ID, the upside is that I hate cars anyways, and I have never had to be the designated driver. The downside? My sweetheart does drive, and hates driving me around whenever we have to go somewhere suburban to rural. Like our wonderful 5 hour trip north recently, during which I mucked about on the laptop and organised my music, and she growled a lot and muttered about how why the hell can’t I take the wheel, anyways, it isn’t as if there are cops this far north anyways.
“I can drive, just not legally”
I’m thinking I should probably learn. Not that I would get a car, but that it’s probably a skill to have under my belt for utility purposes.
I sort of figure the same, but it’s wayyyy lower on my list of priorities, below:
learn to pick locks properly
become a SCUBA instructor
discover the recipe to the fabled drink “Caipiroshka” which I can order on the island of Roatan and seemingly nowhere else
prove a pseudoscience to be legitimate
and so on…
It’s alot of fun, I just wish we didn’t have to rely on it so much.