Sticking Around

Here's something I've always wondered:

When they were making the first video game consoles in the 1970's, they needed a device that could be a generic control for any type of game.  So they borrowed the concept of the "joystick" from the world of aviation, where it had been used for close to seventy years.

Once the video game industry got its hands on the concept, it took about 25 years to mutate into this:

Meanwhile, aviation still uses this:

detail from "Airbus A380 cockpit" by Naddsy - http://www.flickr.com/photos/83823904@N00/64156219/. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons.

That picture is from the Airbus A380, the super-jumbo flagship from one of the world's biggest aerospace companies, and yet it's being controlled by something that looks like it plugged in to my old Commodore 64. 

So one industry must know something the other doesn't. We'll have to see if over time gaming's innovations leak back to aviation, and pilots of the future will be hunched over grasping a controller with both hands, hoping they don't drop it during a landing.