Noob question once again -

[steve_pss]

I see a lot of questions bantered around concerning lightguns.

All this sorta made me curious as to exactly how these magical lightgun thingies work in the first place.

How the heck do lightguns work?

[Lilwolf]

Lightguns work by forcing the monitor to send one full white page... then it waits until it sees a white flash at the gun (which has a light senser)... it then knows how the screen has been drawn (each horizontal row, left to right, top to bottom)... then it calculates the time it took from when the white page request, to when it sees white... and it can calculate where it is on the screen.

Trouble for many is the flash itself.  Its pretty intrusive.  It also requires the optics to change based on the typse of screen... why the TV out version is different then the VGA version.

So I got the jonze to try to come up with a different technology to see if anything else if feasable...

[steve_pss]

same hold true for newer games like area 51?

[u_rebelscum]

same hold true for newer games like area 51?

Area51 is the same.  All but the really new games (currently still being made and not in mame), and the really old nes lightguns.

Nes lightguns worked by the NES sending a white square for just the target, not the whole screen.  If the gun saw white, it meant you hit something.  You could turn up the TV brightness so much that even shot was registered as a hit.  I guess pointing the gun at a light bulb would do the same thing.

I'm not sure which new games use a new technology, but IIRC from thread discussing this, Time Crisis II is still the white screen, but Jurasic Park III is using a newer IR technology.