3.16 - How do lightguns work, and how is the Guncon different?
Description
This article is from the Sony video game controllers FAQ, by Lord Xarph and his Flying Circus xarph@blueneptune.com with numerous contributions by others.
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?
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