Laptop won't recognize both USB controllers?

Hello everyone. I have a question about game controller selection for emulators. Im guessing this could be both a computer and emulator problem. I use a Lenovo laptop. AMD 10, with Windows 8. It's been a long time since I've gamed on it. But the last time I did I could only get the emulators to recognize one USB controller I had plugged in. The second controller couldn't be recognized or configured. I could only play one player games. Couldn't include my friends. Why did this happen? The controllers I tried to use were the older, cheap Playstation controllers found on ebay. Which controllers should I be using? Which ones do you folks use? Maybe it's the emulators I'm using? Which ones are best for this newer type of computer and OS? Emulators I am interested in are mainly all the 8 and 16 bit consoles. Would be nice to play PS and Saturn too. I appreciate the help.

I find there are 3 types of people in that regard.

1) Xbox nuts, People that use the xbox or ps3 for everything. Since the latest ps3 and xbox controllers just work on a computer anyways.
2) People like you that have some of those old adapters.
3) Enthusiasts.

I personally would never be regarded as 1, I just hate one controller for everything. I was once a 2, I had a psx adapter and a n64 adapter. I found if one was not the right fit the other was. Though all of that has changed for me. Now I have a very large collection of original controller and one little adapter that works with them all.
https://bliss-box.net/

You really need to figure out where you fit in.