When did analog controls start to be supported in DOS-era PC games?

Video Games
1

It’s something I’m curious about as someone not super knowledgeable about 80’-era PC games. The Atari 5200 had an analog controller, and several arcade games throughout the decade, used analog stick so the concept of analog controls was already established by then but I am not clear how adoption for such controls evolved in the PC space.

I know that Mechwarrior (1989) and Wing Commander (1990) both feature support for analog joysticks. They’re not usually lauded as innovators in this respect so I have to assume there was already a tradition of similar vehicle combat/simulation games that supported such controls. I also know that around 1988/1989, Sharp manufacted a controller modeled after arcade flight sticks (the Cyberstick), which was supported by around a dozen games on the Japanese FM Towns computer (mostly arcade ports). I would be surprised if it was the first, however.

Basically, what I’m wondering is…

-Is there a PC game that’s widely accepted as the first game to take advantage of analog input?

-Did any early non-IBM PC computer platforms of the time offer the option to use analog and had games that took advantage of it?

-When did it become a reasonable expectation that games that would benefit from it (I assume mostly vehicle / racing simulations) would support analog controls?

2

The Gravis joystick was available in the 1980’s. The company was founded in 1982. Probably sometime between then and 1986 was when the original was released. I’m pretty sure Flight Simulator was a major reason for that which first released in 1982.

3

Don’t have much to add here but I think it was relatively early, which led to so many PC joysticks being a flight stick which was awful for for any 2D action games!