<News> - Dawn of the Light Gun

[saint]

Quick - when was the first light gun game made?

[RandyT]

These guys seem a bit confused.  They are mixing apples and watermelons.

I played a lot of those old style gun games when I was just a tadpole, and remember quite well the black light, the florescent paint on the flying saucers and the nickel sized dot of light that activated the sensor on the middle of the targets.

Those old controls were just flashlights that worked in a system with all the complexity of a nightlight that turns itself on when it gets dark.  Actual lightguns as we know them are receivers and optics that use some relatively complex software support to make them work..  The two work on such dissimilar levels that lumping them together under the same name (lightgun) is inaccurate.

Now if they had said "The History of Shooting Games" or "The History of Arcade Gun Controls".......

RandyT

[Howard_Casto]

Well not quite....

The lightgun we know today definately isn't the same as those early games in the 40's, 50's 60's and 70's but it is the evolution of those guns.  The first true lightguns (by our standards at least) were manufactured by the same people that made the old gallery games, often as an update to their e.m. classics!  The term lightgun actually comes from these early e.m. games (although often "light rifle" was used) so if we are going to call one a lightgun and the other something else, we better start thinking of a new name for the guns we use today.    Lightgun is a generic term, not specific to any technology.... afterall both the zapper and modern "true" arcade guns are both called lightguns and they couldn't be more different.

I know all of this because at one point I was making working, 3d models of e.m. games over at 3darcade.  The gallery games seemed to be the most interactive, so that was to be my next project.... making a "diy" gallery editor/player al-la visual pinball.  Unfortunately, lack of video and gameplay footage made me lose interest.  I did spend hours on end looking up various cabinet styles, manufacturers and classic flyers though.  It was pretty obvious looking up this stuff that modern lightgun games are a direct result of these classics and that the term "lightgun" was common-place by the late 60's /early 70's for these games as well.

[RandyT]

Well not quite....

The lightgun we know today definately isn't the same as those early games in the 40's, 50's 60's and 70's but it is the evolution of those guns.  The first true lightguns (by our standards at least) were manufactured by the same people that made the old gallery games, often as an update to their e.m. classics!  The term lightgun actually comes from these early e.m. games (although often "light rifle" was used) so if we are going to call one a lightgun and the other something else, we better start thinking of a new name for the guns we use today.    Lightgun is a generic term, not specific to any technology.... afterall both the zapper and modern "true" arcade guns are both called lightguns and they couldn't be more different.

I understand your comment, but don't agree.  By your definition, you would be calling a plastic gun with tracking points attached to it a "light gun" because it too uses light (reflected) for the system to calculate position through the video cameras monitoring it.  If I converted a T2 gun from it's normal analog pots to absolute positioning optical encoders, would you call it a "lightgun"?  Both use light to determine position, so why not?

Those very early games referred to them as "ray" guns, apparently to take advantage of the "Buck Rogers" mentality of  the day.  But those controls have as much in common with what we've known as "lightguns" (The skeet shooting controls on early PONG type games, NES Zapper, etc..) as a laser pointer has in common with a lightpen.

The term "lightgun" must have first been used to describe a control at one particular and specific point in time.  Not  "Ray Gun" or "Light Rifle", but specifically a Lightgun or "Lightgun Technology."  If you can support what you are saying with this, I would probably be more inclined to agree.

And yes, BTW, a new name should be used for new devices that use light-based technologies that are dissimilar to raster tracking used in actual lightguns.  And BTW2, what is so different between the ZAPPER and "true arcade lightguns"?  They both work on the same principle.

RandyT


*edit*

It may actually be more accurate semantically to call the early rifles with flashlights in them "Light Guns", and it may very well be that everything that comes later is mis-named.  However, the technologies in each type of control are so different that if they were animals, they would be considered a different species.  So you really cannot talk about "Light Guns" as a generality on the same evolutionary scale.  Therefore,  if one were to consider a "Light Gun" to be these early flashlight mechanisms, their "history" would end at the precise moment when they stopped using that specific technology.

The lightgun that most of us have come to know is comprised of a photo-diode, a lens and a switch of some nature attached to the trigger.  Whatever happens on the CRT, or the processing of the events is immaterial.   if one had a row of Christmas lights set up in a dark room, controlled so that only one was lit at a time, and an NES Zapper was used to sense whether the light was "hit", then I would consider this a "lightgun" game even though no video was used.

[Dartful Dodger]

Those guns are too heavy to be called light guns.

[lanman31337]

True that, some of those guns weigh more than me!!!  Kennywood and Idlewild park used to have some of those old games, at ten cents a pop you can't go wrong!

[Howard_Casto]

Couldn't be more wrong guys.  Technically speaking they are a lightgun in the truest sense of the word.  These guns shoot out light, literally.  The things we call lightguns now detect light.  Since they aren't exactly shooting anything then they can't be considered a gun now can they? 

The technology is directly linked btw, but I didn't want to get into that.  Basically before computers were around to track, you put a bright light in the barrel and cheap 50 cent light sensors on the various targets. This was simplier... no need to calculate position, if you tripped a sensor then it msut be a hit as it's literally mounted on the target. Modern guns put the cheap, 50 cent light sensor (basically the exact same one, sorry randy light guns are almost all software, no tech to be found in them), inside the gun itself and the screen shoots out light (well it turns really white, but same diff).  The only real addition on the hardware end is some sort of timing chip/crystal to count how long it takes for the light to reach the gun.  Then a very simple calculation is done in software based on the game's resolution and refresh rate, compared to the timer results and that gives the position.  No fancy chips, no big leap in tech, nothing.  Just the fact that computers could calculate data made it easy to use a single sensor to get the position.

[RandyT]

Couldn't be more wrong guys.  Technically speaking they are a lightgun in the truest sense of the word.  These guns shoot out light, literally.  The things we call lightguns now detect light.  Since they aren't exactly shooting anything then they can't be considered a gun now can they?

And "lightpens" let you write with photons.....not!

The methodologies used to track are very different.  With those old machines, you could literally knock the targets down with a flashlight.  Now point that same flashlight into the end of the Time Crisis gun at the local arcade and see how well that works for you.  Vastly different technology, but both shaped like "guns,"

BTW, you didn't reply to the parallels I drew with other gun technologies which use light to determine position, so I'm assuming you have no response for them.  Otherwise, I'm really interested in hearing how you can include one dissimilar technology, yet exclude others under the same moniker.

And again, if you want to call those "Ray Guns" and "Light Rifles "lightguns", thats fine with me.  But their "history" ended in the 60's when the last one rolled off the assembly line.  Oh wait, that's not true.  You are allowed to include the goofy shooting redemption games they had at amusement parks in the 80's and maybe even today.  They worked on exactly the same principle.  Everything else is different.

You can include airplanes in the "History of Transportation", but not in the "History of the Automobile".

RandyT

[Kremmit]

[RandyT]

 

If it has a 30' wingspan, it ain't a car, and if it doesn't fly, it ain't an airplane.


RandyT

[RayB]

Ralph Baer made use of a light gun when he designed the first tv game console. I don't know if he invented that particular technology though. This would be in the late 60's...