Ikari joysticks: 8 position or 12 position rotary?

[monkey puzzle]

Could anybody please clear up the following for me? Everybody tells me that the correct joystick to use for Ikari Warriors etc is a 12 position rotary dial jostick. Now I can remember playing Ikari warriors, midnight resistance, forgotten worlds etc at the arcades and Im sure that the joystick rotated through 8 positions. The knob on the top of the stick is octagonal in shape which would make you think that it should be 8 position. Also if you play ikari warriors on mame and rotate the player using the keyboard, he only faces in 8 directions (up, down, left, right and 4 diagonals). Therefore with an 8 position dial, 1 turn of the dial would equal 1 turn of the player. But if it was a 12 postion dial, 1 turn of the dial would surely equal 1 and a half turns of the player. I cant remember this being the case at the arcades, but there only seem to be 12 position joystick available. How come? Is it just me being stupid?
 

[jerryjanis]

Ikari Warriors uses a 12 position rotary joystick.  Forgotten Worlds uses an analog rotary joystick (in other words, the "rotary" part of the joystick isn't positional at all - the rotary portion operates like a spinner as in Arkanoid).  The character in Ikari Warriors can point in only 8 different directions.  1 click of the joystick yields an 1/8th turn of the character.  If you rotate the joystick 360 degrees, the character will turn more than 360 degrees.  I think that you're stuck thinking that the joystick's angular rotation should match that of the character, which is not the case.  Does that make sense?

[u_rebelscum]

Ditto jerryjanis, but some more info:

There are 12 position player games (example: caliber 50), but they usually used optical rotary joysticks (list of most rotary joystick games controls.dat).

Also, the forgotten worlds I first played had a spinner that could be pressed to fire & a normal 8-way joystick.  Later forgotten world cabs I played had optical rotary joystick and a normal button.  The op manuals say the former is the offical way; I guess the latter is an upgrade kit or hack conversion.

FWIW, I like being able to shot "360" without having to spin the joystick 360.  Try taking your hand like it's holding a rotary stick turned all the way one direction, and see how far your wrist can turn all the way to the other direction.  My thumb goes from the one o'clock (or 1:30) position backwards to the 4:30 position, about 8 hours (or positions) in a 12 hour clock.   A smart design, IMO.