Hidden Levels Ep. 2: Stick It to 'Em
Endless Thread
WBUR
4.1 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 10 October 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this second episode of Hidden Levels, Amory traces the history of the humble-yet-genius joystick — from early 20th century aviation, to 1970s video game consoles like the Atari 2600, to the Nintendo 64 thumbstick in the 1990s, to what some consider the joystick's greatest implementation: the dual-thumbstick controller.
This optimal interface has changed the game, and not just the video game. The modern dual-stick controller is now considered an MVP in the military, and in medicine.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Support for Endless Thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software for |
| 0:06.1 | technical computing and model-based design. MathWorks, accelerating the pace of discovery in |
| 0:12.0 | engineering and science. Learn more at MathWorks.com. Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken? |
| 0:19.3 | A podcast from the Mayrotra Institute at B.U. |
| 0:22.6 | Questrum School of Business that asks the thorny questions necessary for this moment. |
| 0:27.9 | Follow Is Business Broken and stay tuned for new episodes this fall. |
| 0:36.4 | Roman Mars, when I say Konami code, does this mean anything to you? |
| 0:40.9 | Ben Brock Johnson, it means zero to me, actually. I have no idea what you're talking about. |
| 0:47.0 | I mean, when you say code, maybe I think of a cheat code. That's about it. That's all I got. |
| 0:52.5 | You're getting warm. You're getting warm. |
| 0:54.8 | We were, you know, we were mentioning all these kind of Easter eggs and cheat codes at the end of our |
| 0:59.7 | first episode about NBA Jam. And this is maybe the most famous, I would say, at least in some |
| 1:05.7 | circles, so-called cheat code of all time. And it originated in a game called Gradius in 1986. |
| 1:17.7 | So Gradius Roman is this spaceship shooter game, which I think both you and I enjoy. |
| 1:23.4 | Totally. |
| 1:24.1 | It was made by the Japanese entertainment company Konami. |
| 1:27.2 | And Gradius, it had this code in it. |
| 1:30.3 | The code would give you power-ups in the game, so like bigger guns, more shields, things like that, |
| 1:35.3 | to help you fight the bad guys. |
| 1:38.3 | To access this cheat code, there's a series of buttons and movements. |
| 1:42.3 | And this code became a signature of Gradius, and it was so popular, it was copied into other games. |
| 1:48.2 | So, for example, Roman, you might know this as the Contra code. |
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