Jump to content
IGNORED

Light Gun on a new TV


Cousin Vinnie

Recommended Posts

I just picked up a brand new light gun from video 61, and it’s an Atari light gun. I was excited about it cause I never had a real Authentic light gun, And I wanted to re-review light gun games for my new website: www.atari7800forever.com... but it doesn’t seem to be working on my flat screen TV. Do these things only operate on cathode television sets?
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeap, the only exception was the NES light gun was looking to see if you had the gun pointed as a white square that was produced on the screen for like 1 frame. Technically it should still work on even newer displays, but the problem now is that newer displays have lag in the time of the signal being sent to the display to when it actually creates the image. While not a lot to prevent general use of the displays, it is enough that the light gun in the NES looks for that square and it shows up just a frame or 2 too late on the screen to be registered properly.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you're considering buying an old CRT for light-gun games, I'd look at converters first, whereby you can play these games on a flat-screen.  I think these are available for the NES, Sega, et al. but I believe they require a composite video cable; and I'm not sure how a RF->composite adapter would work in this case.

 

I feel like something could be used similar to the sensor-receiver bar with the Wii remote, except for a legacy light-gun.  But, I haven't seen anything like that.

 

The Sinden device is interesting, but legacy-gaming has become such a scam-fest such that I wouldn't recommend any novel peripheral without an actual product release. . . no Kickstarter, Pre-order, Seedinvest, etc. garbage.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, sixersfan105 said:

Also if you go the CRT route, be mindful that *some* of the later-gen "flat front" CRTs will not work with light guns, either. 

So maybe I don't have a closet full of broken Zappers, Light Phasers and Stunners? 

 

I'll have to drag out another CRT to see if any of them work with a non-flat CRT...

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/14/2020 at 10:09 PM, aaron1677 said:

Saw the YouTube clips above. Can anyone confirm that a "converter" of sorts exists that allows 7800 Light Gun play on modern TVs?

If it did would you really want it if those were the only solutions?

I mean the first solution with a Wii controller strapped to it may work but it results is a bulky, unbalanced and ugly looking bodge of a controller, which is. Plus it needs an Raspberry Pi & an Arduino added to the mix, so more boxes, expense and more things to power.

 

The second video you can clearly see when the trigger is pulled that the game is utilising the black screen with white target square method of "hit" detection. Now you should not be able to see that frame so I do not know if that an effect of recording the screen or if the camera response in the controller is so slow that it has to display the target ID screen from more than a single frame, which would be rather poor and annoying to keep seeing that. Plus it also need a PC or Raspberry Pi to process the camera image so again not exactly an elegant solution. 

 

If the 7800 games use the white square on black target detection method then it is possible the Sinden controller connected to a Raspberry Pi option might work for a 7800 provided it outputs a 7800 compatible a single high/low "fire" output that can be connected to the 7800 button input pin. 

However, if a game was using counters that are stopped by a "hit" signal from a black screen with white target square light gun you could fake the hit signal by shining a White LED into the end of a 7800 compatible light gun barrel so that every trigger pull registers a "hit", stopping the counters which then gives the XY position of which (if multiple) target was shot at.  But as every trigger pull results in a "hit" signal there could be accuracy issues depending on how tight the XY position of the counters is compared to the XY position of the target.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 years later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...