Has anyone ever hacked a Nintendo gun?

[Sapper]

Is it possible to hack one of the "original" Nintendo systems light guns for use with MAME?

A local thrift shop has a few of these available for a buck...a cheap experiment that I would consider giving a shot.

[Lilwolf]

nobody has it working.

its really hard for a few reasons.

Generic problems with console guns...

the optic hardware for a TV and a VGA monitor.  So you would only be able to get it working with TV - out.

you would have to write your own driver.

Did the nintendo guns even produce a  flash?  Some of them didn't care about location, but just if it sees red or white (when you click the button, it tells the game to flash red/white on whats 'acceptable'... These might be easier... but will only work with some games... you might also have to change the mame drivers to allow a simple white/red flag instead of the location of the screen (that people normally use with a mouse).

Next...

you COULD do it by buying a act labs gun... and hakcing it into a nintendo gun.  would be MUCH easier if your looking for the nintendo look...

[Sephroth57]

i think the old nintendo guns look cooler then those dumb act labs ray guns

[Ken Layton]

Are you talking about the orange guns that Nintendo used with the Vs. Unisystem arcade cabinets?

[GamingGreg]

Are you talking about the orange guns that Nintendo used with the Vs. Unisystem arcade cabinets?

I believe he's refering to the old NES console guns, not the arcade guns.  I could see those being in a thrift store more than the arcade ones.

As far as hacking one with actlabs guts, even that won't be easy, as you'd need to pay close attention to the plastic lens and focal length.  They would need to match the actlabs dimensions, and not the longer length of the Nintendo gun.