A Commodore Story

[Xiaou2]

Hello all.

 Ive decided to tell a little story, about how I might have been the catalyst behind
the Amiga AGA  / Amiga CD32  systems.   I didnt fully realize it, until much much later...


 I grew up using a Commodore 64,  that my grandfather had passed down to our family,
when he upgraded to the c128.   I spent many hours playing games, learning some "Basic"
programming.  Made a few simple programs to move custom made sprites around the
screen, from example code.  That was about all my brain was capable of.

 Years later, I had moved to Florida, and worked my tail off in 60 to 80 hr work weeks.
I ended up entering a computer shop, that sold Amiga computers. The demo of
Shadow of the Beast was playing on it... and I was quite blown away by it.  Furthermore,
they had programs like Digi-Paint, which would allow you to do Digital art... on a level
that no c64, let alone any other PC... was capable of. (4096 colors on-screen)

 This sold me.. and so I walked out of the store with a new Amiga, CRT Monitor, SOTB,
Digi-Paint, and a high cost surge protector (Florida lightning protection, was strongly suggested)

 I played Battle Squadron on it  (Excellent Vertical 2player Shooter),  as well as doing some
digital artworks on it.  Eventually, I found a short-form programming language system,
called AMOS.  I spent a lot of time trying to wrap my brain around the programming
books, and digital code examples.

 The More that I learned about the language, the more I found out about the Limitations
of what the Amiga was capable of.  This made it even more difficult, trying to figure out
how to overcome these things... and how these pro-programmers were able to do it.

 I had a certain Naive mindset... and should have known that I was not cut out for that
level of capacity... especially since I lacked enough math skills to do anything worthwhile.

 This was proven to me, when I made a very simple game framework.  I had tried to make
a wizard that walked, shot fireballs..etc.  But the thing was so dreadfully slow... that it
was unplayable.   I had found an Amiga magazine article, where one of the publishers
posted his home phone number, to be able to call him for coding help.

 I called him, and he was kind enough to send me a program for custom tile editing,
and also, spent way too much time chatting with me about my digital "dreams", rather than
hitting me with dose of reality.  I feel bad, when I look back on this.  Anyway.. in one
of our conversations, I told him about the game I was trying to work on... and stated
the slow performance.  He then told me about using the MOD function, to speed up the
animation cycling.  I was kind of ticked off... because 1)  I couldnt understand that level
of math... and 2)  Why was the Amiga so underpowered, that it needed such a thing, just
to be able to function at a decent state of performance?

 In addition, I had long since realized, even from the C64 days.. that for anything
worthwhile... the programmers needed to use pure Assembly code (not basic)
 Somehow, I has Assumed that the much more powerful Amiga, was different. 
And while some of the AMOS demos were OK... they seemed far from the commercially
polished games capabilities.  Also, I believe many of them had some custom Assembly code
inserted into parts of them.

 I had this Fantasy, that the Commodore company could make a hardware upgrade for
the Amiga, that would allow for faster Basic programming, as well as to vastly increase
the Amigas Limitations... such as having a lot more Hardware sprites to work with.
(instead of trying to manipulate Background objects / Bobs)

 One day, I stupidly called the phone number of Commodore, was transferred to the
UK? offices... and was excitedly describing the ideas of a hardware add-on card, that
could be created, and sold.

 The guy on the other end was very cool, and asked me if I would not mind repeating
my ideas to another guy, named "Jack".  I said sure... and I happily waited transfer...
despite the long distance charges, from the landline call, from the USA!

 I basically told him that I grew up on my C64.. and that I loved my Amiga 500.
 That IBM PCs of the time could not compare..  but for some reason, the Amiga scene
was not that widespread in the USA.  I spent time telling him that if the Amiga had an
Add on card to enhance the Amigas capabilities (even if partially a video Pass-Through).. and
potentially a CD system to boot... that the kinds of games that the programmers
were strongly stressing to create, would become far more easy, and far more
impressive... and thus, far more likely to take off in Amiga Sales + Compete with Game Consoles.

 I believe some of these ideas were in relation to the concepts of the Sega CD,
(not sure if it had been released at the time) as well as the plug-in expansion memory module
I had seen for the Amiga.


 Anyways... I had completely forgot about the call.. and quite some time rolled by..
before I realized that Commodore actually created an upgraded Amiga computer,
and game system.  At the time, Im not so sure that I recalled my previous
phone call... nor fully recognized the impact of it...  But I do know that I was a bit
disappointed that it was not a simple add-on expansion card, as I had hoped for.

 Also.. I never knew that "Jack" was the "Commander" of Commodore!  I didnt
realize this, until decades later... when watching some documentary's about the
company.

 Either way... by that time, I had given up on trying to program.  I knew that I lacked
the math skills, and likely, the cranial power, to be able to fully learn, grasp, and
apply it correctly.

 I realized that my time was spent better, on designing the actual game-designs
more fully... on paper.  Character / Ship Sketches, Control schemes, enemy types,
environments, level editor function ideas, and more.  I used to spend entire
days / nights racking my brains for ideas + drawing sketches. Id often wake up with a
pencil still in my hand.. resting on the paper.

 Over the years, I had tried to working with a few different programmers. I kept
finding that they wanted to do their own thing... and that the ones I ended up
working with lacked a high enough ability to finish their projects, to a decent
level of Functionality (Such as poor AI programming, bad physics...etc).

 Still, I do not regret it. It forced me to learn more about graphics programs like
photoshop.  Made me a better digital artist. Learned a small amount about
3D modeling.  Became faster and better with my game design abilities.  And since
I spent so many hours communicating with others (programmer and other superior
artists + 3d modelers) ... that I ended up going from being a two-finger
hunt-and-peck typer... to a standard two-handed typer, with a decent
word-per-minute output.

 Eventually, I kind of of gave up on the idea of creating a game.  But occasionally,
I still make some designs + concept art sketches + digital mockups.


 Anyway... TLDR = My naive mind.. coupled with my extreme passion, may have
helped to Inspire Commodore to get the ball rolling on the Amiga AGA + CD32 Systems.


 Data Look Up:

 OK... according to Wiki, Jack Tramiel left the company, far before I had made such a call...
so either I recalled the name of the person I had spoken to incorrectly... or it was a
different "Jack"... or that Im from another time-line (Mandela Effect).

 Anyways... believe me or not... doesnt really matter.  Just wanted to share.

[Xiaou2]

A little More...

 I forgot an Interesting addition to this story...

 I used to go to a game / emulation website called  "Daves Classics"  (I believe).
One day I had the idea to try to post, to see if I could work with some programmers,
to create a game based on one of my on-paper designs.

 I got a bunch of responses, and one of them, was from a guy names Darren Ithell.
Darren stated that he was a programmer, and he sent me a small Shooter Demo program.

 I recognized the name quickly.. as he was one of the programmers that had made one
of the pack-in games, in the included AMOS programming disk sets. (Dithell's Wonderland)

 I was looking for something a bit more complex than that, but I let him know that I was
very happy to meet him, and that I had played his game on AMOS.

 At the time, I was also foolishly trying to come up with a completely new design, instead
of using something that was already fleshed out.  This was due to me being influenced by
someone else.  He stated that he didnt think my other ideas were good enough... and so,
I started to doubt things.

 That caused way too much of a delay.  But there were other issues too.  The programmer
was more interested in re-use of an under-powered game engine.  And the 3D artist,
only made one model, before leaving the project.  Understandably so.. as my initial 2D
sketches were semi-flawed, and needed to be re-drawn in all views, as to be able to be
properly translated into the correct 3d Geometrical shapes.

 It really helped me to understand 3d design much better... but at the same time,
it was difficult, and took way too much time... which ultimately just added to the
embarrassing failure / collapse.

 Still, it was an interesting time, story, and learning process

[pbj]

I’ll just say that Wikipedia seems to have an accuracy problem when it comes to 1985-1995ish, at least when it comes to some of the trivial things I’m looking up.  I think a lot of media from then has gone down the memory hole and you can’t easily dig up primary sources.  It may tighten up as records are eventually digitized and maybe someone starts combing back over old entries, but I doubt anyone would bother.

As a kid, I moved many times.  I can remember the grades I was in and thus easily get a fairly accurate time window when I look up things from my youth.  I’ll look up some place I visited in a city, just to read that it didn’t open until the year after I had already moved.  I never went back to that city, how did I go to a store that didn’t exist?  Things I attended for birthdays were long gone by then if you believe Wikipedia. 

It’s very minute “doesn’t really matter” details.  No one will ever be affected by inaccurate information, but you’ll find yourself scratching your head.

In terms of Jack Tramiel, he is well known enough that the information is probably accurate, but I wouldn’t get too dissuaded if you’re just off by a bit.  Situations like, yeah, I left in 1985 but did some occasional consulting and came in a few times to assist with new projects had a tendency to be polished down to “left in 1985.”


 

[Xiaou2]

Thanks PBJ.

 I found some interesting vids recently.

 I never knew this... but the Amiga actually had a few different LightGuns,  and a handful of games for them.




 Another interesting find:

 A guy developed a unique C64 language, that combines the ease of Basic, with the Speed of Assembly.

[JimmyU]

I remember seeing a CD32 in a video game magazine in the early 90’s. I always thought the controllers looked cool. They go for quite a pretty penny on eBay if you want one.

[RandyT]

I never knew this... but the Amiga actually had a few different LightGuns,  and a handful of games for them.

One of the mods from the old Amiga days was for the Sega Master System Light Phaser.  All you needed was a pass through shell for a 10k resistor and to move the connections around.  It worked ok, but nothing like the Guncon2 units for the PS2.  Compared to those, it was pretty bad, but it's not like there were too many options in those days.

[Xiaou2]

I never knew this... but the Amiga actually had a few different LightGuns,  and a handful of games for them.

One of the mods from the old Amiga days was for the Sega Master System Light Phaser.  All you needed was a pass through shell for a 10k resistor and to move the connections around.  It worked ok, but nothing like the Guncon2 units for the PS2.  Compared to those, it was pretty bad, but it's not like there were too many options in those days.

 Interesting.   But also Strange..

 The game "Shooting Gallery" for the SMS.. was one of my favorites.  One of the stages has a series of pipes
where rolling balls move through them.  You have to hit them passing past some small breaks in the pipes,
and when they all come flying out of the ends of the pipes in various angles.

 I tell you... that you have to be Really skilled, to be able to nail all of these targets.. and your accuracy to hit
them between the tiny pipe breaks, showed to me... that the SMS gun was very Accurate.

 The game only got faster, and harder, from that moment on.


 Another game,  Missile Defense 3D  had even smaller targets (missiles)...  and again, I never had any issues
with accuracy in nailing them.


 I also own the PS guns, along with most of the gun games.  I never felt that they were any different from the
SMS guns... in terms of accuracy.   They certainly were a bit Bulkier, heavier... and having to split them onto
the Composite signal was kind of a pain... but other than that, they functioned fine.


 So I wonder, if the hack itself was to blame.  That, or the monitor being used... having some timing issues.
Maybe even some issue with the gun itself.


 Edit:

 Im going to add... that as much as I wanted to enjoy the gun games on the PS...  to me,  they still were not as
fun, and challenging, as  Shooting Gallery, for the SMS.

 Shooting Gallery is actually very similar to Point Blanc.. but, IMO, a much better game.  Point Blanc, is designed
to be a "Continue" quarter muncher.   Where as Shooting Gallery is purely based on Skills and Survival.  If you
fail.. its Game Over...  and you have to try from the beginning all over again.

 Shooting Galleries levels feel more fair and balanced... despite the eventual crazy ramp in difficulty, in the later stages.


 As for Missile Defense 3D... with the 3D glasses... its an awesome experience.  However... IMO, it was a bit too
limited in its stages.. and it seemed to get to an "Impossible" level.. where I was just not able to pass a certain
number of loops.   It was fun, and an amazing experience that everyone needs to try a few times.. but it didnt
compare to the replayable enjoyment of Shooting Gallery.


 One day my little 3? yr old sister came into the room... and I handed her the SMS gun, and showed her how
to shoot it.  Instead of shooting from where she was standing... She walked right up to the monitor,
and actually started shooting some of the targets!  hehe

[RandyT]

I also own the PS guns, along with most of the gun games.  I never felt that they were any different from the
SMS guns... in terms of accuracy.

3.16 - How do lightguns work, and how is the Guncon different?
Charles Doane posted this excellent description to the group:

The simplest answer is that the TV has a scan, called a "raster" that moves from the top to the bottom of the TV screen as it sweeps from left to right. It does this 60 times per second (USA/Japan), the standard is called NTSC (National Television Standards Committee, or Never The Same Colors).
The light gun can see that scan, and by comparing when the scan goes by against one of the synchronizing signals, the software can determine the position of the gun. The reason you can't see that scan is a trait of the human eye known as "persistence of vision", which is why flashbulbs tend to make spots in your vision for a little bit.
The lightgun doesn't have that limitation, it's a machine. Cameras don't have that limitation either, which is why, in some photos with a TV on, it appears that the TV screen is partly blank. The reason it appears that way is because the TV screen really is partly blank much of the time, you just can't see it because of the way your eyes work. The light gun is just a light receiver, it can no more hurt your TV than your eyeballs can, so don't worry about that at all.
As for the best brands, it depends. For Namco games, you're stuck with either a Namco Guncon or a Clone such as Nyko's Super Cobra, or for the earlier games (like Die Hard Trilogy or Project:Horned Owl) you need a non-Guncon type of gun (The Nyko Super Cobra works for those too). There were two gun standards for the PSX in one of the few screw-ups by SONY, but now it seems that the standard has pretty much centered on the Guncon for all recent and future PSX gun games.
P.S. The reason the Guncon has the Composite Video plug is that it uses the far more frequent (and therefore more accurate) Horizontal sync, which occurs 262.5 times more often than the Vertical sync's 60 times per second, or 15,750 times per second. Pretty spiffy, huh?

Note that last part.  It's what makes the GunCon2 the most accurate traditional lightgun ever produced.

[Xiaou2]

That might be so... However... look at this vid:

 When the dude misses, the game leaves a small Dot, where you missed.  Thats how accurate this game actually is.
The smallest missiles in the distance, are quite small... and you can hit them perfectly, even at that size.

 Not only that...but there tend to be multiple missiles onscreen at the same time, different distances, and I think there
are instances of overlapping vectors too... and yet no accuracy issues.

[RandyT]

That might be so... However... look at this vid:

You do realize that the video was made with the Kega emulator on a PC and likely played with a mouse or touchscreen, yes?

from the video description:

Kega was used to record this game. Unfortunatly it has no re-recording/TAS options and im not good enough to play this through to 100 rockets

Edit:  You also aren't shooting tiny targets.  There's these things called "hit boxes".  Look at the proximity of the nearest miss to those small targets.  Anything closer than that equates to a hit.  They do this to account for the inaccuracies of the gun in order to make the game more playable.

[pbj]

Though I haven't touched one in 30 years, I do recall that the Sega Master System gun was particularly accurate.  The games did have very small targets as Xiaou has previously mentioned, and when you missed in Shooting Gallery you knew exactly how you were off.  We got really, really good at that game when I was a kid, and played it long after we had moved on to Genesis.

While the GunCon is obviously more accurate on paper, the games themselves changed a lot.  Moving cameras, targets swinging around everywhere, more chaos, larger hit boxes.  With the exception of the Police Trainer game and maybe some of the Point Blank stuff, in my experience.  Then it got even worse when we went to magic wand guns like the Wii.  They're fun if the game is designed for it, but if they're not you're gonna have a bad time. 

I recently spent a lot of damn money on a Dreamcast gun and then did a bunch of mods to it to improve performance.  The Atomiswave games are.... okay.

No more light guns for me.

 

[RandyT]

Nostalgia has a way of applying many layers of rose-colored glasses to memories.  FWIW, I've owned and used every traditional light-gun since they started with them on the old Pong games, as well as a handful of the home IR types.  In fact, I still own them.

Consider that in the old days, almost everyone played those console shooting games on a fuzzy TV image through an RF converter.  My testing was done on a 37" RGB monitor (from about 5' away) and a PS2 I hacked for RGB-out on my own using PS2 schematics from the web, so as to achieve the cleanest possible raster.  It is a dedicated lightgun setup that I use fairly often.  There's no doubt that, like anything, quality of the guns can vary based on the optics, receiver, etc, but even the best of the older style are not nearly as good as the GC2.  The original GC held that title prior to it's release and I am still forced to use one for titles like Point Blank, which were never released for the PS2 in the US and which don't work with the GC2 in backward-compatibility mode.  The difference is palpable and at times annoying.  Accuracy is easy to compare on this setup, just by observing the tracking and the amount of jitter from each gun at the calibration screens when the games first boot.

One of my favorite shooting games is the updated Skeet mini-game included with Time Crisis 2.  It is very unforgiving, but still uses somewhat larger hitboxes, via shot spread only, for the tiny clay pigeons.  It couldn't be played nearly as well with the less accurate lightguns.   Perfect scores are achievable with a lot of practice and I have never heard a complaint about accuracy.   It's a great party game and a lot of fun competing against friends who like to shoot (basically all of mine ). 

The Dreamcast gun was definitely one of the better ones.  But it was also a more modern offering that needed to compete against the original Guncon, so it sort of had to be.

[Xiaou2]

Its not "Rose colored glasses".

 I can assure you, that the SMS gun, is Extremely accurate.

 Look at the video of shooting gallery, where the balloons are being shot.  If you are off a few Millimeters, the
balloons will be pushed away from where you shot.  You have to be dead-nuts perfect in your accuracy, to hit
it dead-center... which is the only way to pop them.


 Also, Shooting Gallery in particular... is not the typical lightgun game.  Its one of the most challenging gun
games that has ever been created.   There is no "Forgiveness".. and you need split second timing between
multiple fast moving targets.  If you miss one shot, there is a small delay for the next shot.

 If you miss too many targets in a single round... its back to the very beginning.  As such... people like me,
have spent several HOURS, playing over and over again... trying to get further level progression.
These levels and developed Skills, are BURNED into our minds FOREVER.  I literally could pick up a game
tomorrow, and be able to not only remember the exact enemy patterns... but to actually hit them with
perfect accuracy... (until the very late levels.. where things get beyond Insane)

 One video I found, where a streamer actually defeated stage 24 (the final stage)... he said that it took
him a bit over 5 hours of non-stop play.   And trust me... even then, it is an amazing
accomplishment + some decent luck.

 Im not saying that you are incorrect about modern guns being more accurate.  Im saying, that the SMS
guns are a LOT more accurate than you appear to be giving them credit for.

 And if you dont own the SMS + Shooting gallery... then IMO,  you are seriously missing out.
It trashes pretty much everything else, hands down... as far as adrenalin, and high level skills Required.
You cant Continue, or Fudge your way past this game.  Either you have the skills to pay the bills... or
you are kicked on your A**,  and send packin.

 As much as I love a good game of Time Crisis... That game is a Cakewalk, compared to SG.


 Is there something in particular that Mark Cerney (designer of Marble Madness, Shooting Gallery, and Missile Defense 3D),
did to increase accuracy?  Or is it simply, that the SMS guns are just that good.   All I can tell you, is that
I challenge you to try and beat the game.  After all the years I had owned it... I came close... but never reached Level 24.

 That said, I was a younger kid... so maybe my skills could manage to do it now.  Still, watching others try it.. you can
tell that its no joke.

[Xiaou2]

Heres a Video of a guy whom wrote a program to test the SMS Gun.

 He says, that the vertical accuracy is pretty much dead on... and to account for the maximum horizontal variances,
he simply squares the values against the vertical data... forming a circular area to detect.  You can see that represented
in his Red cross target.. which is shown to track accurately... in real-time.

 He also explains that it would be even more accurate in a game, where you flash the screen with a white background.
(hes only using a static blue backdrop)

[Xiaou2]

Some more info on Segas lightgun.

 Interestingly enough... according to a different Video... Sega of Japan, did not release the Lightgun
for the master system (Mark III).    They did have an Anime created, called Zillion.. which was
designed to sell the Zillion game for the SMS.

 But because the SMS was not selling well in Japan, it seems they chose not to release the lightgun
over there.. which I actually find quite insane, considering how good some of their Phaser games are.

 According to this Video.. the SMS lightgun technology is much more advanced than the NES Zapper.

[RandyT]

Sorry, that guy's demo has absolutely awful jitter compared to a GC2 on a good monitor.   He has stabilized the cursor, but at what expense?  Does the system still have enough resources left over to do anything with it?

Accuracy with light guns has as much to do with the system as it does with the gun itself.  Probably more, as a traditional lightgun is literally nothing more than optics, a phototransistor, and some switches.  It appears that if you get lucky, the sega guns have decent optics and a fast light sensor which are actually aligned with the sight.  Not a given, based on at least one review I found on the web.  Believe it or not, I have 3 Master Systems and 3 Phazers, but out of my 49 cartridges, no Shooting Gallery.  I did find "Marksman Shooting & Trap Shooting" and I'll go through the pile again with a list of the supporting games.  Pretty sure there's one or two of the others in there.  You guys have instilled some FOMO in me and my curiosity is piqued.  If I can find the time, I'll give it a go.

However, I will say this: if the screen doesn't show real, pinpoint feedback for every shot fired and unless you are privy to the actual code of a game, you can't know the true accuracy of the gun.  The "hitboxes" for the targets could be huge and you wouldn't know if your aim was off a country mile and that target you think you are nailing dead center was just you getting close enough to it to trigger a hit, given the accuracy of the gun.  And if you are looking for proof, I just watched most of a play-through of "Shooting Gallery" and I'm pretty sure I found it.




At marker 21:06 watch the ball descend into the tube.  Yet, the player fires and somehow scores a hit on the ball while inside the tube and not visible.  The only way this is possible is if it has a large hitbox which was still exposed.

Say what you want about Time Crisis, but if I wing an enemy in the shoulder at long distance, or shoot slightly to the left of a clay pigeon in the mini-game, the game shows it.  If you are interested, I can also show you a short video I took of the GC2 calibration screen,  The cursor is a little jittery, but only by a few pixels overall and the center is solid.

To Steve's comment regarding the Zapper, yes, the Sega gun is a much better system in that it is a true light gun, while the Zapper really isn't.  Sega actually has a special line on the controller port specifically to trigger a counter (or most likely an IRQ) on one of the chips so that the system can know the moment the raster comes into view.  To my knowledge, the Amiga simply used the fire button on port 2 to sense this and I am unclear as to whether the Amiga had the ability to trigger an IRQ from a change in that internal register, or whether it's something which had to be monitored by software in the game loop.  If the latter, it could explain why I wasn't particularly impressed with it on that system.

[PL1]

The "hitboxes" for the targets could be huge and you wouldn't know if your aim was off a country mile

There are some MAME LUA scripts mentioned here that show hitboxes for Warriors of Fate and Street Fighter II.

Someone who knows what they're doing with LUA scripts should be able to adapt one of those scripts for games like Shooting Gallery and draw the hitboxes on the screen similar to the safe zone and danger zone boxes in Jon's DK Coach script.
- A script like this will show how big the hitbox is, but won't quantify the accuracy of the gun.
- For that, you'd probably need to write a test program for the console that allows you to control the fixed-position, size, etc. of the hitbox and count hits/misses and make a multi-axis adjustable-angle rig to hold the gun precisely while gathering large amounts of data using the original console and gun.      

At marker 21:06 watch the ball descend into the tube.  Yet, the player fires and somehow scores a hit on the ball while inside the tube and not visible.  The only way this is possible is if it has a large hitbox which was still exposed.

There's a really good example at 23:58 dropping into the left funnel.


Scott
EDIT: It was a miss.   

[RandyT]

There's a really good example at 23:58 dropping into the left funnel.

It looks like that one is showing a miss.  But it is interesting.  It's as though the entire screen is made up of tiles and the "fudge factor" is based on the tile size.

[Xiaou2]

The screen flashes slightly before the ball drops into the tube.
(it helps to watch it at the slowest playback speed)

 It appears that the movement and animation, is slightly lagging.   Meaning.. that the game
realizes it made the hit... but it takes a moment before it can stop the object, and apply the
explosion animations.

 Also.. this particular level might be somewhat special:

 1)  The tubes are represented in 3d.. showing part of an opened end.. which can be different
based on which way the pipe is facing.

 2)  Difficulty Adjustment.  Due to the narrow window of timing.. this particular level might have
been adjusted to allow for a slightly greater window.

 Hard to tell.  All I can say, is that again.. it appears he shot before the ball entered the tube,
as you see the flash happen before that point.   And that if this is the only example you could
find... then Id say that the game is pretty darn accurate to me.

 My advice is to play it for real.. and see for yourself.   The game is awesome fun, and hard as
cocoNuts.  Its one of The best reasons to own an SMS, hands down.

 Maybe PBJ could send you a copy of this, and Missile Defense 3D


 **  Future Product request:

 A lot of people would Love to experience various games 3D modes.  Most especially, Continental Circus 3D.
(as well as all 3d sms games, a few NES, and a few of the other 3d arcade games)

 It would be great to have an Interface to trigger some LCD glasses.

 The 3D shutter glasses have become fairly cheap.  They either work with an IR emitter, or an RF emitter,
depending on the device.

 The main issue with PC based interfaces... is that they are tied to specific graphics drivers (Nvidia)...
and Nvidia stopped supporting updates for them (the last driver, afaik, doesnt even work in w10)

 If a small USB driven Emitter could be sold.. and the software allowed emulators to trigger it
properly in timing...  it would make a LOT of people happy.


 You can get an idea of how cool Continental Circus 3D looks.. if you fire up your SMS + Glasses + any 3d game..
then look at your PC monitor with the glasses on.   The glasses wont be sync'd to the PC... so it will only
be 3d in part of the screen... and in a looping manor.   But its worth it, just to see it.  Makes a "Meh" racer,
turn into an Awesome game experience... as parts and pieces keep flying out of the screen.

 Eventually, emulators might make use of VR goggles... but that will still have limitations... such as
no accurate lightgun abilities for Missile Defense 3D.  That, and there are many other factors that
make it better for just using shutter glasses. (such as large screen projector setups = greater 3d depth effect)

 If it cant work with 3d movie playback... so be it.  So long as it works with Emulators.


 Edit:  It would probably be better to use an RF emitter... as an IR emitter would interfere with most
common IR gun solutions ?

[Xiaou2]

Partial List of Stereoscopic Games:


Arcade:

Wyvern F0
SubRoc-3D
Battle Bird
3-D Thunder Ceptor II

Virtuality:
Dactyl Nightmare
Grid Busters
Hero
Legend Quest
Battlesphere
Exorex
Total Destruction
VTOL
Flying Aces
Buggy Ball
Dactyl Nightmare 2 - Race For The Eggs
Zone Hunter
Pac-Man VR.
Quickshot Carnival
Zero Hour


Vectrex:
3D Mine Storm
3D Narrow Escape
3D Crazy Coaster
3D Pole Position
3D Sector-X
3D Lord of the Robots


Virtual Boy
22 Officially Sold Games


Sega Master System:

Maze Hunter 3-D
Missile Defense 3-D
Zaxxon 3-D
Blade Eagle 3-D
Space Harrier 3-D
Poseidon Wars 3-D
OutRun 3-D


NES
3-D WorldRunner
JJ
Rad Racer
Falsion
Attack Animal Gakuen
Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally
Cosmic Epsilon


DOS
Magic Carpet
Descent
Duke Nukem 3D


PS3, Xbox360 (Various)

Nintendo 3DS

-----

 Shutterglasses can Also be used to display a 2 player game, on One Monitor...
where as one player is only seeing the Left display image,  and the other player, is only seeing the Right display image.

 It could also be good for 3D displaying of Cabinets, Pinball tables, 3d mame bezel art, and more.

[RandyT]

While it doesn't help for lightguns, 3D has long been usurped by VR.  Screen size is irrelevant once in VR as it can be as small as a handheld or as large as a movie theater.   If you want to play pinball in glorious 3D from the viewpoint of a Star Wars figurine standing at the ball drain, it's been done (and it's pretty darn cool!)

That said, getting 3D to work with emulation seems pretty trivial with some caveats.  IIRC, back in the old days of CRTs, the sync pulse was just tied to the vertical sync of the monitor's video signal.  A small, simple device which triggers an IR LED and a cable which allows a tap into this wire would likely be enough.  The challenge with such simple operation is keeping correct polarity, as it could lose sync and get flipped if the player looked away from the emitter.  Of course, a hacky solution for someone sitting close to the emitter device would be to just have a button to generate an extra pulse to resync. 

The issues are that there are very few CRTs still in use and where to get cheap active-shutter glasses which could behave this way.  They all use their own flavor of protocols to communicate and are not that difficult at all to reproduce.  Good, right?  Well, yes for a one-off DIY, but some of these protocols are still covered by patents and the minute you offer a 3D emitter which uses them, you'll likely be contacted by a lawyer.   

 

[RayB]

Wait, when was Xiau2 let back in? 😅

[Xiaou2]

Wait, when was Xiau2 let back in? 😅

 I was never kept out.

 I had changed user IDs at one point, opting form something I liked better... but I managed to
lose my password to that account.

 I also was away from the site for some time, due to various health and life issues.

 I see you have missed me   (Hugs)

[pbj]

Wait, when was Xiau2 let back in? 😅

Hug it out, bro.

[RayB]

LOL
Who am I thinking of then who got banned, ooohhhhh what's it now, over 8 years ago? (YIKES!)