How Light Guns Work

Acquired Podcast Episode: Nintendo

Have you wondered how light guns work? It’s not simply a toy gun that shoots lasers at your screen. Actually the technology behind light guns is incredible. Learn the theory Nintendo’s engineers came up with.

[fregulang]

This "flash the target white" method is specific to the Zapper (and clones, if any). Other guns, like the ones you see in old arcade games such as House of the Dead or Time Crisis, instead flash the entire screen white and time how long it takes for the gun to detect the CRT's electron beam, which is faster (no need to flash every target in sequence) and more accurate (can hit anywhere on the screen), though it can get a bit intense. :^)

This is why old guns don't work on modern displays. The image is now presented all at once or in pieces, instead of line by line with exact timing. After CRTs were phased out, a bunch (don't know if it's all of them) of modern-day arcade lightguns now rely on a series of infrared LEDs around the screen and a camera inside the gun, which is also what the DIY Gun4IR does. The Sinden works similarly, but instead uses a white rectangle to detect the play area.

[Shivam-zizu]

I had this doubt since I was a kid now l, you cleared it.

[SHTPUSHER]

Sounds like how ai technology could be working

[nitelite]

But if there are multiple targets, how does it know which target was struck?