I don't understand light guns

[MUKid]

I've been reading the enthusiastic posts from folks who are about to receive their Act Labs Lightguns, and I have to admit they look pretty tempting.  It'd be a cool addition to my project to have light guns, which I hadn't really even thought about before.  But I don't understand them.  How do they work?  Do you need any kind of special monitor or TV or anything?  I tried looking on their website, but I can't figure out how they hook up to everything.  

Jay

[TalkingOctopus]

http://retroblast.com/reviews/actlabs.html - The written and video review will answer all of you questions I think.

[Lilwolf]

How they work is that when you click the button, it produces a pure white flash on the screen (for one frame).  This happens because there is a connection between the monitor and the computer....

So you get a white flash right... It has a light sensor at the end of the gun... It waits until it sees the flash... It's keeping track of the time it takes.  

Since all monitors work by displaying each row left to right, top to bottom...

So it knows how long it should take to get to the bottom of the screen... and then it can calculate where on the screen it should be drawing that white pixel at that moment in time.

[jerryjanis]

Sort of off-topic question:

Do the light guns work with low-res arcade montitors?  I've read a lot strange answers that sound like misinformation, for example (from the Act Labs lightgun faq):

Which USB Light Gun will work with my Arcade Monitor?
A: The PC USB Light Gun will work with an Arcade Monitor as long as you have a JPAC Arcade VGA card available from www.ultimarc.com

Err, what?  I need who?  The JPAC ArcadeVGA card?

[tmasman]

Which USB Light Gun will work with my Arcade Monitor?
A: The PC USB Light Gun will work with an Arcade Monitor as long as you have a JPAC Arcade VGA card available from www.ultimarc.com

Err, what?  I need who?  The JPAC ArcadeVGA card?

He's refering to having a JPAC encoder (This does also do some nifty filtering of tehe video signal, but I don't hink you neccesarily need it...) & an Arcade VGA video card in the computer.

I believe that you would just need the Arcade VGA video card from Ultimarc.com.

I don't personally have this set-up (yet), so maybe a few enlightened (read "gun toting") MAMErs could spead a little light on the subject.

I know a few people have the guns working with the arcade monitors...

[Lilwolf]

ArcadeVGA is the way to go... Then with a standard vga version..

take note.  Some get it working... Others dont...  Turn brightness all the way up and hope for the best.

I still hoping to create a universal solution with real time tracking... but my analog -> digital solution went through (no test boards... And not willing to create the hardware solution AND the software...  

Not right now at least...   Or the next few months -> year.