| A standard on arcade machines for years, yet, in 1985, an innovation for home consoles. Gunpei Yokoi's clever NES controller design contained, among other odd characteristics, a small, auxiliary (non-"action") button labeled "start." This button, in most games, served both to begin play from the title screen and to pause within the game. Quite a neat idea; the SMS had to rely on a "pause" button stuck on the console itself, reulting in bruises as one dove across the room to hit the thing. |
