Yeah, i'm 49, and I am not the oldest one here.
I've always enjoyed the immersion of using a joystick rather than mouse + keyboard, even if the precision is not the same. The first accessory I bought when I got my first PC in 1999 was a Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro. I still have it in a box around here somewhere. The second thing I bought was a Soundblaster card because the built-in gameport on my motherboard would not recognize the stick.
My first computer was an Atari 800 around 1982, then a 1200XL. I played the snot out of Star Raiders and F-15 Strike Eagle on those using the old Atari 8 direction, 1 button joystick. For F-15, you could use a second joystick as a throttle so you didn't have to go to the keyboard as much. I built a holder out of Plexiglass that rigidly joined the two sticks together, sort of like a giant twin-stick gamepad.
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