The Gravis PC GamePad is a game port

Game port

The game port is a device port found on IBM PC compatible systems throughout the 1980s and 1990s. It was the traditional connector for joystick input devices until superseded by USB in the 21st century....

 game controller

Game controller

A game controller is a device used with games or entertainment systems used to control a playable character or object, or otherwise provide input in a computer game. A controller is typically connected to a game console or computer by means of a wire, cord or nowadays, by means of wireless connection...

 produced by Advanced Gravis Computer Technology

Advanced Gravis Computer Technology

Advanced Gravis Computer Technology, Ltd. was a manufacturer of computer peripherals and hardware. The company was founded in 1982 in British Columbia, Canada....

. It was the first gamepad for the IBM PC compatible

IBM PC compatible

IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...

 in a market then dominated by joystick

Joystick

A joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Joysticks, also known as 'control columns', are the principal control in the cockpit of many civilian and military aircraft, either as a center stick or...

s. Included with the gamepad was a shareware

Shareware

The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...

 Commander Keen

Commander Keen

Commander Keen is a series of video games developed by id Software in the early 1990s. The series focuses on the adventures of Billy Blaze, an 8-year old boy who travels through space and assumes the identity "Commander Keen". The series was successful at replicating the side-scrolling action of...

game, episode 1, Marooned on Mars, which was later replaced with the shareware episode 4, Secret of the Oracle which supported all 4 buttons. The gamepad is no longer manufactured, as the Gravis company has ceased to exist.

The gamepad's design is similar to that of the stock SNES

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...

 controller (more so the Japanese and European version with colored buttons), although it lacks the Start, Select and shoulder buttons, and the shape of the controller's chassis differs slightly, with an inverted curve on the left side. As originally found in some versions of the Sega Master System

Sega Master System

The is a third-generation video game console that was manufactured and released by Sega in 1985 in Japan , 1986 in North America and 1987 in Europe....

 controller, the center of the Gravis GamePad's d-pad

D-pad

A D-pad is a flat, usually thumb-operated directional control with one button on each point, found on nearly all modern video game console gamepads, game controllers, on the remote control units of some television and DVD players, and smart phones...

 allows a small joystick to be inserted. The resulting lever

Lever

In physics, a lever is a rigid object that is used with an appropriate fulcrum or pivot point to either multiply the mechanical force that can be applied to another object or resistance force , or multiply the distance and speed at which the opposite end of the rigid object travels.This leverage...

 action provides increased directional sensitivity, desirable in fighting game

Fighting game

Fighting game is a video game genre where the player controls an on-screen character and engages in close combat with an opponent. These characters tend to be of equal power and fight matches consisting of several rounds, which take place in an arena. Players must master techniques such as...

s for example.

Both at the top and bottom of the gamepad are switches. One of them removes the normal functionality from 2 of the buttons, and turns them into autofire variants of the first 2. This gave all four buttons functionality even in PC games that only supported two buttons on joysticks or for scenarios when two gamepads are connected with a Y-splitter. The other allows for left-handed

Left-handed

Left-handedness is the preference for the left hand over the right for everyday activities such as writing. In ancient times it was seen as a sign of the devil, and was abhorred in many cultures...

 operation by turning the workings of the D-pad and buttons upside down. Both switches can be used at the same time.

Variations

Later, two variations were made, called the GamePad Pro, and GamePad Pro USB, which resemble a pre-Dual-Shock PlayStation

PlayStation

The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...

 controller. The GamePad Pro employed advanced signaling techniques to allow for both the use of ten buttons and the simultaneous use of up to four controllers connected by the controller's built-in piggyback plug, but games couldn't detect the gamepad unless they were coded with the device in mind (DOS) or a specific driver was installed (Windows). The latter uses the USB

Universal Serial Bus

USB is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices....

 port and the USB Human Interface Device class

USB human interface device class

In computing, the USB human interface device class is a part of the USB specification for computer peripherals: it specifies a device class for human interface devices such as keyboards, mice, game controllers and alphanumeric display devices.The USB HID class is defined in a number of documents...

 standards, is not intended for DOS use. Gravis launched other series of gamepads for the Mac, the Amiga

Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...

, and Atari ST

Atari ST

The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...

 as well.

The CD-i

CD-i

CD-i, or Compact Disc Interactive, is the name of an interactive multimedia CD player developed and marketed by Royal Philips Electronics N.V. CD-i also refers to the multimedia Compact Disc standard used by the CD-i console, also known as Green Book, which was developed by Philips and Sony...

 interactive multimedia CD player features a wired controller that is basically the original Gravis PC GamePad in a monochrome, grey color scheme. The Gravis logo is replaced with the Philips logo. There are only two button functions, and the switch at the bottom controls the cursor speed in menus.

Media

The GamePad also appears in the video game Jazz Jackrabbit

Jazz Jackrabbit (computer game)

Jazz Jackrabbit is a platform game developed and published by Epic MegaGames. It was released in 1994 for PCs operating DOS, with subsequent Macintosh and Microsoft Windows releases in 1995 and 1996....

as a power-up

Power-up

In computer and video games, power-ups are objects that instantly benefit or add extra abilities to the game character as a game mechanic. This is in contrast to an item, which may or may not have a benefit and can be used at a time chosen by the player...

; it appears in the same game as an advertisement in the background, which reads "All kids love Gravis GamePad". The shareware demonstration version of the game noted that the Gravis Gamepad was the official gamepad of Jazz Jackrabbit.

One icon from the Nuvola

Nuvola

Nuvola is a free software icon set under the GNU LGPL 2.1 license, created by David Vignoni. Originally created for desktop environments like KDE and GNOME, it is also available in packages for Windows and Macintosh. The final version, 1.0, contains almost 600 icons...

icon set resembles the GamePad.