How light pens and light guns work NES Zapper
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- čas přidán 30. 12. 2016
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In this episode I take an in depth look into how the Light Pen and NES Zapper gun actually work with a CRT display.
Now I can finally relax after pondering this question for about 30 years
It always blew my mind
RIP my friend
Could've googled it for at least 20 of those years. Fail lol
Same I was also wondering how the heck this worked
9:00 that right there blew my mind. After all these years, it never once occurred to me to see what would happen if I press the buttons on the second controller
I picked up the controller and tried to control the duck purely as a joke. What a surprise it was when it worked!
@@palaceofwisdom9448 that was the best part!
My friend knew that, so he fired a gun at the light. In a lamp. In this way he earned a lot of points. Such a hack :D
did it also works with multiple ducks? did they die at the same time?
@@chrisakaschulbus4903 No, you will make a quick click and you will kill the ducks at the same time. The developers of this game didn't think about this hack :)
yup, was gonna make the same comment
Me too
I did that accidentally i was shooting up and than point it to screen
The NES light gun used a more primitive method than competing guns on other systems. The Sega Master System light phaser for example used a different method which only needed a single frame to detect position. It worked like this: 1. Blank out the screen for one frame in white. 2. While this white frame is being drawn, the light phaser reports back to the computer at the very moment it can see the white electron beam. 3. By calculating how much time has passed for the beam to be seen, the computer can calculate position and if a target was hit.
This avoided drawing white boxes around multiple targets over many frames, and was the most popular method until the end of CRT screens.
So it worked like the light pens?
I remember the light gun on my PS1/2 was very accurate and worked as a cursor on the screen as well all the time, no matter if hitting fire or not.
The video "Playing Light Gun Games on a Modern LCD TV" from chipos81 used this method with the NES lightgun. Maybe both Master and NES used the same thing? Because you need to show bullets explosions, even if not hit a target.
Nope. Not the same. Chipos81 discribed the nes light gun wrong. Funny enough he discribed the sega gun more than the zapper. It just happned to work because he is emulating a tv screen essintually.
@@yvesnyfelerph.d.8297 That's because the PS1 and PS2 GunCons used that extra cord to plug into the video signal
when hardware was limited, developers were so creative and cunning when making games with the most innovative solutions. Now since hardware is not an issue anymore, lot of AAA game developers don't even care about the optimization which require advanced and more expensive hardware
Also development time. Now you can download a game engine and have access to libraries for just about everything you need for a game, and software to tell you what syntax error you have and how to fix it. Back then you had no such luxury so why waste time learning how a niche controller works when you already know how to write code for a regular controller.
That's how technology advancement works though
Top ten facts spitted so hard it sticked to the screen
Show me an AAA developer who you think doesn't care about optimization and I'll show you an overworked underpaid bastard who was given N months on a game that realistically would've needed N*2
Games these days are 100x more complex than those games. I'm sure they're innovative on many levels.
It wasn't just persistence of vision that make the CRT image appear to be moving. The phosphors lit up by the electron beam take a little time to fade out. The persistence time can be varied by the manufacturer to fit different needs. Medium persistence phosphors in old fashioned RADAR scopes kept the image on screen for several seconds until it was updated by the rotating sweep. Tektroinix developed a CRT with a persistence measured in tens of minutes. They first used it in their oscilloscopes to capture a signals image, by 1963 they had developed it into one of the first computer graphics terminals.
High speed video proof: czcams.com/video/3BJU2drrtCM/video.html
r/iamverysmart
What the hell?!! Reading that made my head explode. I suppose next you're going to tell me the light in the refridgerator goes out when you shut the door! :-p
@@benstalls208 r/ihavereddit
@@NateROCKS112 r/okayand?
The wife looked thrilled to be controlling the duck.
i want a pet duck
Mouse Trap and I want to die
Agree
I had to pause the video to find this exact comment!
im triggered because you called the independent self sufficient human female "the wife"
No way. ONE pixel at a time? It just goes so fast you can't tell?! That's mind blowing. And that effect is the frame rate syncing up with that wave length.
8:59- what!? that would have been awesome to know 30 years ago!! I had no idea you could do 2 player duck hunt!!
Chadwyk Gaming - Playthroughs, How To's and More! Who reads manuals these days
Bryan Aca We are talking for before 30 years, not now.
if u had some naughty kids who fight to share the game with ya at home, u would had known that info☺
30 years have gone by. OMG!
VS Duck Hunt is also two-player; you also have a bonus round where you can *_shoot the dog_* lolz
1:46 when I saw the Twin Towers on the TV I remembered just how old all of this technology is (and me)
You have answered one of the questions I had throughout childhood & had completely forgotten about until I saw that gun in the thumbnail. Loved Duck Hunt when I was a kid, but nobody could figure out how it knew where it was pointed.
I'm remembering an old DEC PDP graphics terminal we had in college. It had a monochrome-green screen with a light pen, but invisible to the eye it also had infrared pixels so you could program any area of the screen as "Light-Pen Sensitive" or not. Touching the pen in places where it was supposed to work produced results, but touching it to non-sensitive areas did nothing. It was a neat concept of the time. We played Lunar Lander with it.
I didn't know about controling the duck. That's pretty cool.
Also, I like how you're using other youtubers in the video. It's like a class field trip.
WOAH 8-BIT GUY YOU'RE TRENDING!
supermario18 mama mia no spaghetti
Ive started my infatuation with the world of electronics from mid 2002(my first pc had win xp) so it seems like ive missed a lot of vintage stuff that is really fascinating.
What ive wanted to say is thank you, your videos are very light harted and a joy to watch, especially because you go into pretty deep detail on the subject.
You, Technology connections and LGR are one of my favourite pastime channels, for when i want to unwind and just relax while getting learning some, lets face it pretty unnecessary yet super interresting, information
thank you for solving the Zapper gun mystery for me, I was always curious how those things worked
Techmoan and the 8-Bit Guy on the same day? Hooray!
sorry but tech moan doesnt appear here
David Sucesso no, but he released a video today as well.
Arne Schmitz ahh now i understood
This is a load of barnacles
David Sucesso
When you think you're a super big nerd, and then you see a guy who writes songs about old computers... you realize there are people WAY nerdier than you out there. Lol, that guy is awesome.
I am totally taking that as a compliment :)
Bedford Level Experiment It is :D
9:09 that lady looks like she’s having the goddamn time of her life :D
I always find your videos relaxing- I've no idea why :) You put so much work into each one :)
I didn't hear you mention it in the video, but the method that the electron gun/CRT uses to display the image on the screen is called "raster scanning".
and you are a raster-sandwich with potato
@@chrisakaschulbus4903 uh what
@@mischiefthedegenerateratto7464 woooosh
love that shirt: "I was cool in the 90s"
I think it's even more sad when you were born in the 90s.
thanks for sharing 8bit guy! your videos are always fun to watch.
10:47 - Weight and balance. There are a few benefits: there's a perception of quality in a weightier object (early Beats headphone models had dead weight for this reason), the weightier gun is less prone to jitter, and having it balanced just behind the trigger guard makes it easier to aim and your wrist less prone to fatigue. If you remove the weights, you'll find the gun is much less pleasurable to hold and use.
Ya, that seemed pretty obvious to me. Anything that doesn't neatly fit into a hand (like normal controllers) usually needs to be either balanced or so light that it doesn't feel like one is holding something. Otherwise there would be risk of fatigue or even injury from using the product. As someone with a joint disease in my extremities I am keenly aware of this lol.
An interesting thing to point out is that the light gun that was made for the Sega Master System works the same as the light pen. It can transmit what the small area of screen it is pointed at pixel by pixel, the software does math to determine the estimated pixel it was aimed directly at, approximately. That's why the Sega light gun based games just did a single screen flash when you pulled the trigger, mainly to highlight the screen to avoid the black or darker areas of the screen not registering.
Robin seems such a nice guy. Great video, thank you!
8-bit guy! Digital trends made an article about this video! Honestly it's a great video that helped ease my frustration with the zapper and my plasma screen, I kept turning up the backlight thinking it wasn't bright enough, thanks for the tips!
Damn! This was really informative and educational.
Great video,
You really cogently and expertly convey the information in a manner is truly easily understood and not confusing.
Love your videos and have a happy new year's!
Later light guns (such as the Playstation one) worked like light pens did. Unfortunately these were also rendered unusable on LCD screens :(
SteelSkin667 never heard of a light gun for PS 1
Vladimir Stajilov Namco made the GunCon, also sold under the name G-Con 45 in Europe. I still have mine, as well as copies of Time Crisis and its botched sequel Project Titan. But I don't have a CRT TV to use it with anymore :(
those games were so awesome!! I always dreamed of a giant CRT to play on because mine was only 10 inches diagonal :-D pick up one from classified ads or craigslist, they come for free or very cheap!
There was also the Konami Justifier gun for the PS1, as well as a ton of 3rd party lightguns (mostly compatible with GunCon games). Some even had recoil, just like the arcades!
+Felix Dietz as wlllppwpwpppqwpp my
Interesting. Enjoyed the in-depth review you and research you done in this video.
That makes so much sense, I always wondered why when I tried to take videos of my tv monitor (back when I had an old school tv) it would show dark lines going from top to bottom of the screen! Great video!
#15 on trending. Good Job 8 bit guy.
Matthew Kinney now it's 10?
We don't need him trending to know that he makes a good job 🤔
What happens when you shine a flashlight down the barrel of the gun? Do you always win?
Oddity Archive pointed an Action Max gun at an incandescent lamp and managed to cheat, I'm guessing a NES gun would want a lamp that flickers in time with the TV/mains line frequency (one and the same)
i remember finding out you could cheat by just putting your finger over the tip. not sure why that worked.
Notice how when he explains the zapper that when you pull the trigger the screen first goes black so the gun can calibrate, before it displays the white box. In other words when you pull the trigger the gun needs to see black and then white at a specific time to determine if it hit anything.
It depends on the game. Some games detect the black screen to prevent cheating and others don't. Flashlghts are not likely to work but on rare occasions certain types of AC powered lights can also trick the games since they are technically flashing. The gun will see black at one instance and white the next but it depends on the type of bulb and the timing of the game.
You could cut the barrel of the zapper right in front of the sensor thus giving the sensor line of sight on the entire screen.
Fascinating.
You are rapidly becoming my favorite channel.
Thank you.
Light gun games were the best; my Master System came with the light gun, and I had tons of fun with it.
One of the things I miss the most about old school gaming!
Thanks for answering such mysterious questions; I've been wondering about this since I was 3 or 4...
Man... duck hunt was huge when I was a kid!
It was like being at the arcade.. in your house.
So in a way it's almost like the TV is shooting at you and not the other way around? #MindBlown
uhhh yeah yeh nerd.
That duck is the one shooting us?
In Soviet Russia TV shoots you!
Barnacules Nerdgasm hi Jerry aka barnaclease.
i need to learn game programming , teach me , oh godly figure of nerdism.
good research an uber nice collaborations as usual!! love man, thanks for the effort and work!
Thank you for mentioning the lack of LCD screen support for both of these devices. You have saved me some money on my retro gear budget. Great video!
Wanna know the real reason why 8-bit Zapper gun exclusive games didn't sell? Cause at some point, no one had a working Zapper! These things broke like nothing! And as a kid, I took real good care of all my game consoles! I used to yell at my brother if I found a NES cartridge just lying on the floor and not inside it's black sleeve and placed back in my game cabinet
But anyways, my point is, I also used to own a Sega Master System. It was the first console my parents bought me and they eventually bought me a NES a year later. The SMS came bundled with a black Zapper gun and I only owned 1 game for it... the bundled game which had both Hang-On and Safari Hunt. Safari Hunt was the SMS' Duck Hunt but so much more fun! You had jungle levels and so many different animals and objects to shoot and I played that game so much................. so much that eventually my Zapper just stopped functioning. My mom actually called Sega Customer Support for me cause it was still under Warranty, sent them the defect Zapper and I got a new one in the mail. And guess what happened? It broke again! I remember it breaking even sooner than the first one. But she didn't ship it out this time around and when I think about it today, it's probably because the 3 month or 1 year warranty had expired for accessories and Sega was demanding for money to repair it.
And the reason I know these SMS Zappers were crap is because my cousin also had a SMS Zapper and I remember going to his place one Xmas, he had RAMBO ON SEGA MASTER SYSTEM, a game I had always dreamed of playing with a Zapper, but when I asked if we could play it, he told me his Zapper was also broken and we could only play the game using a controller.
Anyways, at some point my parents got me a NES with the Orange Zapper bundle. I kept renting Hogan's Alley all the time and eventually THAT ZAPPER BROKE TOO!!!!!!!!!! Like I would press the trigger, I heard the shooting sound effect but I it wasn't registering any of the shots! Then at a Flea Market I bought another Zapper for like $5 and when I got home, this one didn't work either! This one didn't even do any sounds at all! It was just dead!
Like wow... these Lightgun Zappers were so poorly designed. Everyone I know that owned a NES Zapper also had defective ones or were unprecise or didn't register 100% of all the shots. So of course no one bought Lightgun-only games cause none of us had working ones.
Many games, like Bayou Billy had lightgun levels but could also be played with a controller cause they knew these things broke all the time and they didn't want to punish players by not being able to complete the game cause they don't own a lightgun!!!
It wasn't until the PSone when we finally had the ultimate game gun! The Namco Guncon! Man did that gun look badass, and on top of that, it worked and was actually precise!!! Why is it that ever since the PSone we never had good gun accessories for consoles?
Sure you had the Wii and PS Move controllers that could be hooked up to a plastic gun accessory and play rail-shooters like Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles and House of the Dead, but I can't aim it like a real gun! I can't aim using the sights that are on the plastic gun because the Wii Sensor Bar and PS Camera doesn't exactly know where I'm pointing the gun at on my TV! It just detects the movements! So rather than aiming using the plastic gun's sights, I'm starring at my TV and moving the crosshair with my hand movements...... it's hard to explain but if you try it for yourself, you'll understand what I mean!
IMHO, I think the only way to bring back "gun games" is through VR! WE NEED HOUSE OF THE DEAD ON VR SO BAD!
VR is a pointless technology that'll probably die out soon. It's basically two TV screens in first person that you cover eyes with. You may as well just shove your face into the TV.
Carlos Vera Yeah but if you try it it's gonna be hard, cuz you can't relax your eyes because in the headset it has a foam thing, and it has a dent so you're not to close to the screen, and when you put the headset on its complete darkness unless u have a game on it, but in reality when you shove your face on the TV you wouldn't be able to see anyway.
ARM0R3D_G1ANT I meant as in "getting really close to it" but I guess people need to be precise and can't just accept "close enough".
Want to know what real VR is? First person view.
I disagree it is like saying TV is radio with moving picture. Believe me in the 30's people were saying TV was going to be a fad. I think VR is more than just what you described. I am not saying VR is perfect just yet but just imagine the amount of applications beyond video games. There are people considering making VR movies. Movies where you basically can interact.
@@MultiBlueblanket haha your funny ._.
Damn, youre trending! Amazing job as always
love this video! always wondered how the NES zapper worked and why they don't work with new flatscreen TVs anymore! 📺
This is mind blowing! I always thought lines on a tv screen were drawn one line at a time, but you are saying it is one pixel at a time.... incredible.
In the late 80's we have the Zapper and some games for the famicom (I'm from Mexico), I agree with the Obsolete Geek, the games were fun for about 20 minutes, but that's all... we didn't play with the Zapper most time.
1:56 "It's hard to capture" I was about to ask how you were capturing it so well.
Thank you for the concise explanation of how the nintendo zapper gun works. I tried explaining it to a friend for a long time who just didn't get it, and the fact that it was different from a light pen. I'll be sending this video to them :-)
I've been wondering how the zapper worked for a long time. Controlling the duck blew my mind. Thanks for some awesome content!
Even though its from the 80s, this is stupidly clever.
Actually knew this, first time I didn't learn something new
Love the guest speakers you had on! What a historic video!
Out of the 3 videos I've watched, this is the best explanation I've encountered on how duck hunt game works.
Kinda funny how it is, the NES was built "cheaply", yet it lasted longer then some electronics today that are built "cheap"
Wasn't Nintendo the expensive option, too?
@@jameswalker199 I think so, i heard somewhere it was built "cheaply" at least its cart connector is.
Zx spectrum or Amstrad cpc were much cheaper
Maybe the Famicom but the American NES is notoriously faulty due to the inane design with the cartridge loading mechanism and the unreliable lockout chip.
This makes me appreciate my modern day Wacom Cintiq even more :D
Great vid, as usual. As someone who has coded for NES and the Zapper, I just wanted to add that an NES program, by polling the Zapper, can tell which vertical line of the screen the Zapper is pointed at. Duck Hunt is often used as an example of how the Zapper works, but it's use of the Zapper is primitive (only has 2 targets max, so that's fine). Other games such as Chiller and Operation Wolf have many targets on screen, and almost certainly do track the vertical position to reduce the amount of frames needed to check the hit position.
Very great job! Keep doing these history of technology videos, they are amazing.
That was cool ... you can have another chhanels like 16 bit thn 32 thn 64 bit guy for newer stuff too 😂😂
Oh my gosh, I've been wondering about this since I was a little kid. It was witchcraft to me. Witchcraft I tell you!
I’m literally re watching all your videos. They’re just so interesting to watch haha
I enjoyed the video. I had the VIC20, 64 and 128. I was a trip down memory lane.
You mean you have to use Your hands, That's a baby's toy.
michael1234252 I see what did there
back to the future
+T Orrent
I noticed, but didn't comment on it because I figured everyone noticed.
Guess I was wrong about that...
+michael 123452 you must be into bondage then
What?!?!
I can't believe you could control the duck! All my childhood is ruined now knowing all that fun I missed.
Such a great way to explain these amazing accessories. Thanks dude
This is awesome. Seeing this reminded me of the awesome Zapp Gun, totally inspired me to do a Zapp Gunn MOD into a sci-fi prop gun. So cool.
seeing that dog giggle at me again gave me vietnam flashbacks and ptsd
Wtf are those "jokes". Un oroginal and just making fun of death. Useless generation
@@RicoLee27 wtf is that spelling
@@RicoLee27 What is that grammar
Hello 8-bit Guy, I have a question - if Zapper doesn't work on LCD due delay caused by LCD, would it be possible to fix it? By adding physical part to zapper or adjusting a code of the game (via emulation)?
I was thinking about the same thing.
Wall of text incoming:
1: It should be possible if you modify the button part to send the input signal with a delay, synced to the delay of the screen. I don't know what kind of precision we are talking about, though, and if the screen delay is constant or variable. If the screen delay isn't constant, you would have to constantly detect its delay somehow, and adjust the extra button delay for every frame.
2: With emulation it could be possible if you change the right part of the game code, depending on how that code works. If there is a timer in the original code that checks for a light signal on the screen after a small delay from when the button was pressed, you could probably change the timer value stored in the (virtual) ram to last longer, and detect the late signal. To do it with a physical game, you would have to properly edit the game file, like patching it, for a permanent change.
However, if there isn't a timer in the code, and the check for the signal is instantaneous, you would have to rewrite the function of the code and add such a timer. And if the delay is variable, you either hack around in emulation and somehow adjust the game code for each frame. With an actual console you would have to put all that tinkering in the actual rom, which would be insane and probably impossible.
I have a feeling that this comment was slightly more in depth than necessary xD
derkevevin
Interesting, thank you for the answer
I was thinking something along those lines as well, like adding some kind of a timer chip onto the gun, between the trigger and the connection to the console, perhaps adjustable with plus and minus buttons or something like that. But I still think it wouldn't work because of the slowness of LCD technology - the panels aren't as fast at producing lit and unlit pixels as other types of displays, there's always a delay when the LCD panel turns a pixel on, changes its color and when it shuts one off (this is always mentioned in the specs of LCD displays, eg. 5ms grey-to-grey). I'm not however an expert or a display engineer, somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
derkevevin but if the input is delayed, the screen will not flash, right? it will only flash when the console receives the input and the sends the flashing image to the screen.
I don't think number one would work. Once the flash hits your LCD it had already happened on the NES. Delaying the zapper is only going to make it worse, since opportunity long passed and now it's being delayed more.
This is Very Cool and Informative, Thanks. I have always wondered how this worked
I got the Playstation 2 light guns when I was a kid. These guns ("Guncon 2" to be specific) use the CRT timing technique, similar to the light pen shown in the video, but probably because of the latency of the USB connector (that interfaces the guns and the console) a yellow RCA connector was to be plugged in directly to the gun (with an adapter) so it could track the CRT drawing beam. Although it can show a pointer on the screen that works in real time with the gun's movement, mainly for helping navigate through menus, during the actual shooting game the screen is blinked white for a frame (I guess) in order to increase the precision of the light detection and avoid failures (also, it gives a nice "shooting effect").
I remember the disappointment when we switched to a plasma screen, but even now I still have somewhere a small CRT TV that I occasionally plug in just for this and the performance is still impressive.
One last gift for on this shitty of 2016?
Thank you so much! I love learning about retro tech. =]
tfw the 8bit guy is on the trending list
Zekester 2016 what does tfw mean????
Tfw?
it means "that face when"
I have always wondered the answers to these! Awesome video.
Thank you! you answered one of my childhood questions. I think these two technologies are not very complicated or advanced but they are truly genius for that time
I always thought there weren't a lot of light gun games because maybe it had to do with the capacity of the systems and having to always put up a light box. Like maybe having a complex game with an actual plot would push the limits of the game by constantly having to add the light boxes in every frame? Or I totally over thought that... rofl
But turning every color cell black and every sprite white one per frame wasn't hard at all
MarioKart7z true
The problem with making EVERY sprite white at once leads to the problem... which sprite was the NES pointing at?
With the NES that as true, there was a few games like that and the problem was after just 5 or so targetable sprites on screen, the flashing was getting too crazy. Sega's first light gun game easily overcame this since it worked like a light gun, the end result knew roughly which pixel it was aimed at like the light pen. Safari Hunt had many sprites (and targetable background objects) and all it needed was a single screen flash.
In the end, how many light gun games could someone come up with without all of them being a tired idea while competing with other titles being released. Somehow Nintendo actually pulled out 20 games that used it and Sega had 13 at the time.
Well, there's a basic timing issue.
You have 60 or 50 frames per second on the NES depending on whether it's NTSC or PAL,
Let's say PAL since that makes the problem bigger.
Now to figure out what happened and what you hit, you first need a black frame. That's 1 black frame for every time the gun is fired.
Now you need to show each target rectangle for a single frame. That's 1 frame per target.
Now say you have 9 targets.
That means your screen is near enough to blank for 10 frames.
That's almost 1/5th of a second.
That is very distracting. And it only gets worse the more potential targets there are.
And if for some reason you had say, 49 targets (I don't think that's plausible on an NES, but it's possible on snes - and notice how the Snes Super Scope - the Zapper equivalent actually works more like the light pen than the zapper) then the screen is going blank for a second or more every time you pull the trigger?
That.... Seems quite maddening.
A second of a mostly blank screen, but with a sequence of flashing white squares? Very noticeable, and headache inducing (if not a major epilepsy threat too.)
So there's a pretty strict upper limit on the number of targets with this kind of technology...
Good info thanks
Cool video man. Thanks. I was 6 when my dad got our commodore 64. Now 38 this is some pretty cool stuff to learn about that old cutting edge technology. Lol
Thank you! I always wanted to know how this Zapper works, since I used it once back in the day..
I guess if you had a CRT monitor built inside a desk, like facing upwards, or slightly at an angle so that you can both properly see what's on it while sitting at the desk and effortlessly point at it with your light pen, it wouldn't be quite as cumbersome to use, but that's a hard trade-off just for using a light pen though, when your C64 could be used for many more things besides that and which then would be uncomfortable to use on a monitor set in that position.
Or a monitor mounted on a hinge in a desk, not unlike a sewing machine. Folded down for writing, lifted up for viewing
So the light pen actually transforms CRTs into ancient touch screens?
The Mayans were thrilled.
Even as a kid I also wondered how this works. Thank you for the vid.
Very interesting and informative video, thanks. I never realized zapper works that simple way.
The Wii pointer actually is more precise, but can offer the same general functionality as the light pen and zapper.
Somewhat different technology. (the sensor in the Wii Remote is an infrared camera with built-in point tracking hardware)
Which actually means that the Wii was one of the first systems that could run light-gun like games on an LCD display.
And in fact had several examples of such games released.
Or rather, games whose gameplay style is basically comparable to lightgun games.
Also several that had pointer functionality similar though distinct in nature to how a lightgun game tended to work.
I suppose the Wii and Wii U can support duck hunt on the virtual console because of this.
I never did check if they actually made it available or not though.
Do you happen to know if also shooters on rail with LCD screen at the arcade use an infrared camera?
KuraIthys This may have changed with age and updates but previously the only way to play duck hunt on the Wii was a homebrew which replaced the "hit/miss" zapper with the location tracked wiimote.
Duck Hunt was released on Wii U virtual console and does indeed use the Wii Remote pointer!
I have no idea how arcade games do it. XD
But the Wii definitely demonstrates one possible option.
The basic idea that any such shooting game needs to deal with is determining where the gun is pointing.
But there are a lot of different ways to make that happen, so I really couldn't tell you how arcade games do it, or even if any given two arcade games do it the same way.
by chance I happen to know how the Wii remote pointer works.
and to be specific about that, in case you're interested, the hilariously misleadingly named 'sensor bar' contains 10 infrared LED's in 2 groups. Although there's 10 of them, it really just seems to be to make it brighter, since it's set up in a way that to the sensor in the remote looks like 2 points.
The Sensor itself is a 128x96 infrared camera with a field of view of about 30 degrees. (there's a filter in front of the camera to ensure that it mostly responds to the infrared light frequency of the sensor bar, rather than anything else)
This camera has a dedicated special purpose processor built into it that takes the camera output, finds the 4 brightest light sources, and using some calculations based on multiple pixels outputs 4 sets of coordinates.
(it's impossible to read the raw camera data, so you can't actually tell what it's seeing.)
The output is a screen coordinate for a pretend screen with a resolution of 1024x768, with the usual quirk of computer screens that 0,0 is considered the top left of the screen.
Although this is all relative to where the sensor bar is, so if you want to use it in software you have to guess the relationship between the sensor bar position and the actual screen.
So what this little sensor gives you is an X coordinate, a Y coordinate, and a 'brightness' (0-15) for the 4 brightest light sources the sensor sees.
The point there being 4 points is that if you arrange 4 IR lights in a suitable pattern, and know what that pattern is, you can fully determine a position and orientation of the sensor relative to the tracking marker.
Unfortunately for whatever reason Nintendo chose a tracking marker (incorrectly being called a 'sensor bar'), which for all intents and purposes consists of only 2 IR lights.
This means you can determine an X and Y position, and rotation (but only 180 degrees, you can't tell the remote being upside down from right side up, it looks the same. Fortunately the Wii remote has an accelerometer that is pretty good at telling you which side is down.), and a very rough guess at the distance between the marker and the remote, by looking at the distance between two points, and also the brightness of the points.
The distance calculation unfortunately isn't very accurate because with only 2 points being off to one side looks largely the same as being further away.
So basically you can't tell being at an angle to the tracking marker (sensor bar) apart from being further away from it.
Still, an x and y coordinate is good enough by itself to mimic light gun games. And the rotation is a fun feature as well.
It's just that a minor modification to the sensor bar design (which would not be all that much more expensive than the one they included with the system) would have meant fairly reliable 6 degree of freedom tracking, though it would still be limited by the very small field of view of the camera.
Still, for what it is, it's arguably more useful for gameplay than the main feature of the wii remote - the accelerometer.
It can mimic a light gun, and a mouse, and several other comparable input devices to a decent degree, which few modern consoles have been able to really do.
Especially I can't think of any console that has really had anything comparable to a mouse since the snes...
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And Duck hunt made it to the Wii U virtual console huh.
That does make sense.
It's far from being an entirely accurate representation of how the zapper works, but it's close enough to be playable, which is the main thing you'd expect from the virtual console...
Thank you! It was an excellent explanation!
Heavy text processing is traditionally by far the best application of light pens, they allow you to click on a certain part of the paragraph and edit it immediately without having to use the arrow keys, much like we do with mice today.
great explanation and demos
An interesting additional note! You can aim a wiimote (ir camera) at your monitor, calibrate it and sync over Bluetooth. Then any ir light with a button can be used as a stylus/light pen on any type of monitor. (Im using my Rob the Robot to hold a wiimote aimed at my modern tv right now)
So in theory you could shine a flashlight into the gun, pull the trigger, and kill a duck.
As for the gorilla arm that inevitably comes from holding your arm upright so long, I guess you could've mounted a monitor like in a cocktail arcade cabinet, facing upwards? Would be a lot of hassle though, and you'd probably have to have a monitor/TV in that rig all the time, too much work changing it out.
I've seen video of extremely old CGI workstations (for Pixar, I think) that actually used that basic setup for use with light pens.
New subscriber to the channel. My mother talks fondly of Duck Hunt from back in the day, and when the Wii dropped she personally asked me to try to get her a virtual console of the game (hoping it would have made the 2006 release with the Wii Shop). I can see now why this wouldn't have been successful, as to my knowledge virtual console games were not compatible with the Wii remote and, with CR TVs discontinued, any attempt to recreate this same model would have required re-releasing the game altogether under new software to be compatible.
It's amazing how these things worked. I'm 21, I remember older televisions and consoles, but unfortunately I came after the NES hype. I never could have dreamed that this was how they all actually worked.
Excellent presentation! Very informative video. Thanks! 👍🏻
Of course you would be friends with a guy who sings about retro tech.
I like Robin. You should have him on again. :)
Thanks :)
Dude you should totally solder together a 2-port adapter with a dip switch or something to change which pin the pen's button goes to.
tohopes you Sir. stole my idea
a SP4T* switch would probably be better (*Single Pole 4-Throw)
the software could also just mask out the upper nibble of the $DC00 CIA register and consider any non-zero value as pressed. i'd have thought that the Fire button (bit 4) would be inuitive assignment and become a defacto standard.
+Gert Brink Nielsen it looks like it says SPAT switch
+Martin Wagner : It's the design decision that the fire-button pin was already wired as the trigger-signal from the photo-diode. And only this pin could trigger the transfer of the raster-counter to the lightpen-register (directly by the vic-chip, for timing precision), so you could only use one of the other pins to act as button.
Fascinating material as always.
I recently saw this same Nintendo NES Zapper at a thrift store in Walterboro, SC, is where i live. And I used to have this Zapper for my NES for games like Duck Hunt as part of the 2-in-1 Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. Now I need to get Wild Gunman, Hogan's Alley, Operation Wolf, Mechanized Attack, and Laser Invasion soon.
Someone needs a high speed camera!
it would need to be INCREDIBLYYYYYYYY fast.
Tj & Ja well, there are cameras with 170k fps, if I'm not mistaken... But 20000 fps should do the trick, too...
Tripplehelix the slow-mo guys did an episode on crt
go ask slow mo guys, and dont forget to tag me...
There’s a high-speed camera that can record light moving. #mindblown
Remember when this guy made a video telling guys to send emails with questions then he made a video making fun and ranting about the questions?
hmm.. I don't.
The 8-Bit Guy another interesting and cool video😎!
zhbvenkhoReload DURRR BURRRKK??!!
zhbvenkhoReload Seems like you mixed up with someone else?
??????????????
You took me to my good old 8-Bit/16-Bit cartridge days. Amazing to know the technology behind it.
Thanks! They were using one to help with concepts for Tron (1982). They were using a high tech display to do 3D graphics on an orange monochrome looking system. I actually got the extra’s originally on the Laser Disc, but it is also found on the DVD release with the black cover with a teaser graphics. #ono
Wut? You could control the duck with a second joystick in Duck Hunt? Well, I didn't know.
Gonna call you 'Da 8-Bit Dood' cuz you are so flippen awesome! Really enjoyed the video. I can rest peacefully that this age old question is not haunting me any more. XD Don't leave us hang'n for so long or we're gonna cancel Christmas next year! Ha!
P.S. I hope you and yours had an excellent Christmas and looking forward to a great New Year.
Awesome episode. Thanks Dave!
I was so young when playing Mario in my neighbor's home that I couldn't recall till today what game hardware it was. Ah! What was that feeling to be let in and play the game. We were sent back some days and it was devastating. Today you showed duck hunt and yes that was the other game I played after Mario and with that Shotgun. So I now know my childhood was enriched by a Nintendo some 20-25 years back. That means a lot to me since I am a programmer now.