Or just focus on DOS? Thanks to Dosbox and its various ports I don't think any other system will be as stable or support as many different platforms. Instead of having to fix bugs every six months when the modern systems inevitably change in some anoying and not backwards-compatible ways, a DOS version will just keep running everywhere.
DOS means joysticks with 4 axis and 4 buttons max, short 8.3 filenames, obsolete network protocols, SVGA graphics mode, stereo SoundBlaster 16, three button mice, basically no integration with the host system... Also, terrible SDKs and 16-bit real mode nonsense if you're the developper.
Technology has progressed over the past 30 years and DOS is firmly stuck in the 1990s. If you're decompiling a video game with the eventual objective of making improvements and bugfixes to it, you might as well port it to modern systems too. Some of these like high-definition resolutions for example will require it anyway.
But Dosbox is a bit more flexible than if you had to target actual DOS only on real hardware. A DOS game can support VESA modes up to 1920x1080 (at least?) in Dosbox-X for instance. Mapping extra joystick buttons to keyboard keys sounds like it should be possible on a modern machine? Supporting ancient DOS hardware sounds like fun ("fun"?), but I think more of Dosbox as a very stable and portable virtual machine. No need to be restricted to what would realistically work on a real old DOS computer.
Which ones did that? Afaik the "digital" protocol joysticks bit-banged serial communication using standard gameport pins.
https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/24946/how...
Found this page that has a list of some 10 different protocols for sending digital signals from joysticks to a gameport: https://dosdays.co.uk/topics/joysticks.php Other than the sidewinder and GriP protocols I have not managed to find any specs for the other protocols. I clearly think I remember from back in the day that using MIDI for extra buttons was a thing so it may be one of those other protocols did, or it could be that I am just wrong.