Think of it as an upgraded Hall effect joystick. This makes the joysticks ... budget, and style. ALPS makes potentiometer thumbsticks which is an older standard for controllers.

Either way, [Marius Heier] decided to take a look at what would be required to build a better joystick and came up ... bunch of experiments with 3-axis Hall effect sensors, specifically the ...

The four displays are controlled by a single controller board, which houses an NXP K22FN512 microcontroller along with four stepper drivers and interfaces for the Hall-effect sensors needed to ...