Definitions for terms commonly encountered while describing controllers.
A measurement of how much weight needs to be on a button in order to press it down. For our purposes, this is measured in grams.
A button that activates gradually, based on force applied. Examples are the L and R buttons on the Nintendo GameCube controller and the L2 and R2 buttons on the 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller, the 8BitDo Pro 2, and the 8BitDo SN30 Pro+.
An area on an analog stick that is not read, generally in the middle and sometimes to the extreme outer edge.
A button that is either on or off no matter how much force is applied. Examples include almost all controller face buttons.
An area on an analog stick that the stick naturally gravitates to, usually a cardinal direction (UDLR). Can be caused by hardware or software.
The fraction of a period in which a signal or system is active. For our purposes, we use this to describe if all active turbo buttons are pressed at the same time when the turbo for each button is pressed, or if each button has its own press timing based on when the button was pressed by a human.
An electronic sensor that detects the presence and magnitude of a magnetic field using the Hall effect. In some models of controllers, Hall effect sensors are used, rather than potentiometers, to determine the position of an analog stick to an extremely accurate degree. Because there is no contact between the parts that are moving, a Hall effect sensor does not wear down the components over time.
Occurrences per second. For our purposes, we use "presses per second" to describe the rate of fire for turbo controllers.
A program on a controller that, when a single physical button is pressed, replays a series of inputs that is customizable and finite.
A unit of electric charge equal to the charge transferred by a steady current of one one-thousand of an ampere flowing for one hour. For our purposes, this describes the battery capacity of wireless controllers.
The ability for a collection of buttons or keys to handle multiple simultaneous presses. For our purposes, Rollover describes whether controller buttons (usually back paddles) can be pressed and released independently of each other.
A manually adjustable variable resistor with three terminals. Analog sticks use these as position transducers, one for each axis, to determine the position of an analog stick. This method of analog position measurement is known to get more inaccurate the longer the analog stick is used.
A measurement of how circular the readings of an analog stick are, with 0% being a perfect circle and 100% being a perfect square. The lower the percentage, the closer an analog stick is to the ideal circle.
Rapid fire method for controllers to substitute button mashing; a turbo function repeats a single button press infinitely.
How long a feature takes to become usable. For our purposes, Time to Live describes how long a controller's turbo feature takes to become usable.