page_title: Atari 5200
section_title: Controllers
hierarchical_section_title: Atari 5200 / Hardware / Controllers
caption_attribution_description: The Trak Ball controller for the Atari 5200 video game console. This official controller was sold separately and offered trackball control for movement instead of a joystick.
context_page_description: The Atari 5200 SuperSystem or simply Atari 5200 is a home video game console introduced in 1982 by Atari, Inc. as a higher-end complement for the popular Atari Video Computer System. The VCS was renamed to the Atari 2600 at the time of the 5200's launch. The 5200 was created to compete with the Intellivision, but wound up a direct competitor of the ColecoVision shortly after its release. While the Coleco system shipped with the first home version of Nintendo's Donkey Kong, the pack-in game for the 5200 was 1978's Super Breakout which had already appeared on the Atari VCS and Atari 8-bit computers in 1978 and 1979 respectively.
  The 5200's internal hardware is almost identical to that of Atari's Atari 8-bit family, although software is not directly compatible between the two systems. The 5200's controllers have an analog joystick and a numeric keypad along with start, pause, and reset buttons. The 360-degree non-centering joystick was touted as offering more control than the eight-way joystick controller offered with the Atari 2600.
context_section_description: The controller prototypes used in the electrical development lab employed a yoke and gimbal mechanism that came from an RC airplane controller kit. The design of the analog joystick, which used a weak rubber boot rather than springs to provide centering, proved to be ungainly and unreliable. They quickly became the Achilles' heel of the system because of their combination of an overly complex mechanical design with a very low-cost internal flex circuit system. Another major flaw of the controllers was that the design did not translate into a linear acceleration from the center through the arc of the stick travel. The controllers did, however, include a pause button, a unique feature at the time. Various third-party replacement joysticks were also released, including those made by Wico.
  Atari Inc. released the Pro-Line Trak-Ball controller for the system, which was used primarily for gaming titles such as Centipede and Missile Command. A paddle controller and an updated self-centering version of the original controller were also in development, but never made it to market.
  Games were shipped with plastic card overlays that snapped in over the keypad. The card would indicate which game functions, such as changing the view or vehicle speed, were assigned to each key.
  The primary controller was ranked the 10th worst video game controller by IGN editor Craig Harris. An editor for Next Generation said that their non-centering joysticks "rendered many games nearly unplayable".
caption: The Pro-Line Track Ball controller
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