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Rolls-Royce experimented with joystick steering back in the '60s but didn't proceed due to lack of feel, ie no steering feedback.
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I would think most changes to car design that affect the actual driving experience will be stopped because what people currently drive/control.
Fly by wire steering might come but if we lose the current controls (steering wheel, accelerator and brakes and optional clutch) then won't we all have to retake a test?
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Even the controls of cars as they are now appear counter-intuitive to some people. A late friend of mine once took a driving lesson. After he negotiated the first corner the car continued to turn and climbed up on the pavement before the instructor had had time to apply the handbrake. The instructor asked my friend why he had not fed the steering off to allow the car to run straight. My friend looked at him in total incomprehension. Fortunately he took the instructor's advice to give up trying to learn to drive.
The same friend, who by the way was highly intelligent about most things, was completely unable to understand that in outer space, in free fall, where gravity cannot be felt even though it may be present, there would be no subjective impression of 'up' or 'down'. To him, up was above his head and down was below his feet. The role of gravity, a force he found it hard to understand, meant nothing to him.
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Strange. I have a close family member who is an MSc.....she can't drive.
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Makes you think though--- Just watch a 7 year old on a Play Station handset. Astonishingly quick.
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Tell me about it shoespy. You ought to see me playing Grand Theft Auto. I am usually dragged out of my car and quite rightly shot dead by plod within about 45 seconds, following multiple deaths and much mechanical carnage.
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I hope they were polite and touched their forelocks before firing the fatal shot.
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Funny, I never noticed much forelock-touching by anyone on grand theft auto... perhaps there's a special Belgravia/Mayfair edition though?
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Good man Lud, I find the missions just get in the way of racking up a body/burnt-out shell count.
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I was also going to add that I'd heard that drive-by wire steering is not allowed on cars, vans, lorries etc. since there has to be a mechanical system, even if there is power assistance. Presumably this regulation doesn't apply to farm tractors etc.
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I've had the "pleasure" of seeing first hand when joystick steering goes wrong!!
My old mate has an electric wheelchair steered by such a device, and an alarm light flashes when his battery power is getting low. when this bulb failed last year, i changed it for him, (10 min job outside pub) but to do it you have to unscrew the joystick - 4 screws, push out the lamp housing, change bulb and replace everything. Un fortunately, unknown to me at the time, i didn't realise that i had got the joystick back in the wrong position! instead of forward push relating to forward direction, right push was now forward, left was reverse etc, and we only found this out on our way home at 12.00am, when we came across him. well off course for his home, virtually going round in circles and crashing into everything in sight. Well we found it exceedingly funny and fell about laughing, but the truth is he was very upset! cold, wet, and frustrated! and although luckily he had only left the pub at 10.30 ish, he may well of been out all night had we not chanced across him.
Smiles about it now though!
Billy
Edited by billy25 on 04/01/2008 at 01:05
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To be clear, I know nothing about flying and I know far less about flying military aircraft. I do seem to remember though, a documentary which was shown just prior to the release of the Eurofighter during which a very experienced but older RAF pilot commented that that this aircraft was favoured by the "Play Station" generation because of the way its control systems were configured.
To take this back on to an automotive theme, I do wonder if future drivers will actually feel more intuitively comfortable with a keypad and joystick style control system ? I just hope if this is the case that you will still be able to specify "old tech" as well for technophobes like me ! ( he says typing with index fingers and thumbs ! )
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I had a friend who'd watched too many Batman shows. He cut the top and bottom arcs off his steering wheel just leaving two short left and right segments. I had a shot once and found it very strange but he seemed to get used to it and drove it for months like that. IIRC plod took a dim view one day and he had to hang up his cape.
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The wheel is here to stay. If a joystick control is to be implemented then I would guess a F1 type removable steering wheel would be there for old type drivers.
( maybe a spike where the wheel is removed, as requested by some ?) :-)
It is hard enough trying to introduce non standard handbrakes.
Citroen had a brake button but had to introduce a pedal for the masses to operate it.
I recall, decades ago, on a US limo, seeing buttons on the dash for auto gear selection rather than lumps by your elbow or dummy quadrants like RR.
You wheely would not adapt to a joystick even if Airbus aircraft have them.
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Tracked vehicles are legal on the roads, and they steer hydraulically by levers?
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I've noticed that if I play a car racing game using a joypad I don't tend to treat it like a driving a car, and tend to play more recklessly and less skillfully than if I use a steering wheel and pedals. That's because a steering wheel gives a level of feedback that's simply not possible using a joystick. That'd be as true in real cars as it is in computer games.
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Doesn't it depend on the degree of feedback, rather than the actual type of control?
Spitfire pilots were pretty nifty with the old joystick - was there a big demand for steering wheels instead?
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Many things on cars have succumbed to the march of technology
Isn't the current layout (steering, gear shift, pedals etc.) continuing for last 50 years?
Steering is such a wonderful concept. I want steering to stay - as long as cars have wheels.
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Isn't the current layout (steering gear shift pedals etc.) continuing for last 50 years?
Well, paddle-type gear shifters appeared on expensive exotics and are now filtering down the 'food chain'. Many people can't abide them, but if electronic clutch operation becomes more normal, who's to say the conventional gear lever won't look as archaic as a spark advance/retard lever?
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Why is peoples thinking constrained to joysticks?
If you are thinking ahead 50 years why not steering control by thought alone?
An interim system could possibly use eye movement, but what will happen when you sneeze????
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A thought controlled car ? Tee Hee ! well dodgy !
Don't know about others but I go to great mental lengths not to display any outward signs of road rage but if my car could tell what I was thinking sometimes............well I expect it would come back with a cyber message along the lines of " insufficient clearance for that parking instruction ! " or "unauthorised location for wheelbrace, please re-specify"
;-)
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Thought controlled?
With the amount of though sometimes apparent on our roads, many drivers would never get round the first bend :-)
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After my little diversion into thought control ( and I am being serious), I cannot believe that I didn't also suggest the alternatives of either voice control, or 'look and go'.
Both technically possible even now, but if Ford installed in a Mondeo Ghia (already has voice control of accessories) it might be some fun!
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Tracked vehicles are legal on the roads and they steer hydraulically by levers?
>>
An enforced position for hands at quarter to three then. :-)
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Tracked vehicles steer by braking one track and diverting the drive to the other. They gouge road surfaces and wear out rapidly themselves. They are for military and industrial use only. No one else can afford them.
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I know of a woman who has been quadraplegic since the age of 16 (diving accident). She drives what Americans call a 'minivan', and I am pretty sure she uses a joystick for steering.
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