Light Guns As Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2016-05-06
·
949 words · ~4 min read
0:00
there are plenty of different kinds of video games out there but throughout the
0:05
history of gaming a huge part of the
0:08
appeal of games has been the fact that many of them allow us to pretend to
0:13
shoot at things and although we do most of our shooting these days with a
0:18
Gamepad or a mouse and keyboard a lot of you might remember the days when we had
0:23
actual replica guns to fire at the screen I'm talking of course about light
0:29
guns the things that you could use with your NES to play duck hunt and just
0:34
shoot that stupid dog over and over again because he keeps laughing at you
0:38
but even though light guns are a rarity these days they were a little ahead of
0:43
their time back in the mid 1980s considering that the concept of
0:48
controlling your video games by pointing something at the screen didn't really
0:53
take off again until Nintendo introduced the Wii in
0:57
2006 however the light gun actually has
1:01
a history that goes way back before home
1:04
video games in fact all the way back to
1:07
1936 with a Contraption called the seaberg Ray o light that appeared as a
1:13
wooden cabinet containing you guessed it a mechanical duck with a tube attached
1:19
to it that could sense light a rifle
1:23
that came with it fired a light beam that would make the duck fall mechanical
1:28
light gun games like these eventually gave way to arcade games that
1:33
used a light gun that worked with CRT monitors which found their way into the
1:37
home as accessories for consoles like the NES and Sega Master System so when
1:42
you pointed your NES zapper or Sega
1:45
light phaser at the screen and fired at a criminal a water foul or whatever the
1:50
case may be the screen would very briefly go blank then redraw only the
1:56
targets as white blocks the light gun
1:59
could then detect whether it was pointed at one of the white areas and then if so
2:04
the game registered a hit later light guns like the Nintendo Super scope which
2:09
looked like something you might use to invade a small country defended by a
2:14
clone army of Marcus Phoenix allowed for greater Precision by detecting the
2:19
change in brightness at a certain point on the screen once it was refreshed to
2:24
figure out where the gun was pointed but hold on a second the way that light guns
2:29
work sounds pretty straightforward so why have they gone out of style ah well
2:35
sometimes as technology moves forward stuff gets relegated to history's
2:40
Dustbin simply because it was designed to work with something else older which
2:46
is exactly what happened to our beloved light guns you see old CRT screens had
2:52
much lower display leg than modern LCDs
2:56
when LCDs started to dominate the market they offered Crisp Images and low power
3:02
consumption not to mention being lighter and thinner but they've never been as
3:06
quick as tube monitors due to fundamental differences in how they work
3:11
light guns don't work with modern screens because their display leg is
3:16
just too high so they can't draw those white targets or change the brightness
3:21
quickly enough for the gun to register it and even though the light gun is
3:26
considered a retro piece of tech the quick respon that you could get from a
3:31
light gun paired with a CRT actually hasn't been matched by modern solutions
3:36
like the Wii remote which tend to have a much higher very perceptible latency
3:41
when you're pointing them around but of course if you can't still play games
3:46
with them you can at least use your light guns as accessories for your next
3:49
Halloween costume just don't try to walk through airport security with one
3:54
Speaking of airport security if you want so much knowledge it could be considered
3:59
dangerous maybe check out linda.com with a
4:02
linda.com membership you can watch and learn from Top experts who are
4:06
passionate about teaching they've got thousands of video courses that you can
4:10
stream or watch On Demand on your smartphone or on your tablet or whatever
4:15
the case may be and you can learn on your own schedule at your own pace you
4:20
can browse course transcripts to follow along or search for an answer that you
4:25
missed or skip to that point in the video you can take notes as you go and
4:29
refer to the them later you can create and save playlists of courses that you
4:33
want to share with your friends colleagues and team members so you can
4:37
all take whether it's your hobby or your career to the next level with linda.com
4:42
they've got topics from digital photography to video editing to business
4:47
to uh productivity applications all kinds of things and their plan start at
4:52
just 25 bucks a month so head over to linda.com and sign up for your free
4:57
10-day trial at the link in the video description thanks for watching guys if
5:02
you like this video hit the like button if you disliked it though hit that
5:05
dislike button it makes us sad but otherwise doesn't hurt us too much leave
5:09
a comment if you have suggestions for future fast as possibles and don't
5:12
forget to subscribe and follow all of our channels uh here on Techquickie
5:17
over at lus Tech tips and Channel Super Fun we've got a great video over on
5:21
Channel Super Fun you should go check that out right now if you're looking for
5:24
something else to watch