rec.autos.simulators

  The earliest force feedback I remember was a game called Hard Driving that
I played in the mid 90's in an arcade, though it was probably created
earlier (my guess would be late 80's, early 90's?).

  I've only been playing PC racing games for a few years, so I don't know
too much early history.   I would never have thought about using a force
feedback joystick, but I wouldn't want to use anything but a force feedback
racing wheel.  So that's why force feedback really didn't enter the picture
until I got into racing games.

Lots of old posts to this group about the history of Hard Drivin' (and Race
Drivin') and other details.  Search Google Groups -- this line seemed to
find a lot of them, but there are probably more:

  (force OR drivin') group:rec.autos.simulators author:milliken

Also see Jed Margolin's site.  Jed is the wizard who designed the hardware
for both games (and a lot of other great Atari arcade games) -- read the
whole page, there are lots of good stories:

  http://www.jmargolin.com/schem/schems.htm  

-- Doug Milliken
   www.millikenresearch.com