NES zapper + LCD

Discuss technical or other issues relating to programming the Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom, or compatible systems. See the NESdev wiki for more information.

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lidnariq
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by lidnariq »

... I guess I did observe that a sufficiently bright single flash of light would cause the original zapper to trigger, despite not containing any repetition at all. So I guess it could make sense that a sufficiently higher-gain sensor would make the original 16kHz demodulator circuit rail and trigger with just a single dark-to-light transition.
Greg2600
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by Greg2600 »

Just chiming in, but a few friends and I tried the Tomee Zapp Gun and had bad results. Despite a wide range of TV's, we couldn't get the hacks to work. Spoke to the creator several times, but we could not determine the reason. We surmise the build quality was of such poor quality in these guns that it's possible huge batches of them will not work as is. We're currently waiting on another friend to install a pontentiometer that would control the voltage which the light diode gets. This was done by someone on YouTube already, and we hope it works.
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rainwarrior
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by rainwarrior »

You might try the zapper test roms I linked earlier in this thread. They could tell you whether or not your zapper is seeing the light from your TV, and can check function of the trigger.
Greg2600
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by Greg2600 »

Hyperkin just announced at CES a new HDTV Light Gun Zapper, which many believe is going to utilize the same technology in the Modern Mallard......

https://www.facebook.com/10698879600289 ... 066715279/

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/0 ... with_hdtvs
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tokumaru
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by tokumaru »

So they're trying to push that thing work the game-specific adapters again? That's just not cost-effective.
tepples
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by tepples »

Depending on the details of what is announced at CES, the "Hyper Blaster HD Adapter" in the article could be either bad news or good news.

Bad news: It's a game-specific enhancer that sits between the Game Pak and the Control Deck, as in Modern Mallard.

Good news: It's a box that receives the composite video from the Control Deck and whatever position cue the gun is putting out and uses the position cue to gate returning the composite signal on the photodiode pin, as in the previous Wii Remote-driven prototype. The positioning tech could be licensed from one of the companies that sued Nintendo over the Wii Remote.
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tokumaru
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by tokumaru »

The picture in the Facebook link shows an adapter. That's not good news.
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rainwarrior
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by rainwarrior »

Yeah, I was hoping for a commercial scale lightgunverter. :(

Though I'd be happy even if just more lightgunverters were made.
Greg2600
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by Greg2600 »

tepples wrote:Depending on the details of what is announced at CES, the "Hyper Blaster HD Adapter" in the article could be either bad news or good news.

Bad news: It's a game-specific enhancer that sits between the Game Pak and the Control Deck, as in Modern Mallard.

Good news: It's a box that receives the composite video from the Control Deck and whatever position cue the gun is putting out and uses the position cue to gate returning the composite signal on the photodiode pin, as in the previous Wii Remote-driven prototype. The positioning tech could be licensed from one of the companies that sued Nintendo over the Wii Remote.
It's almost certainly the Modern Mallard design. However, if the new light gun has "modern" components, it should hopefully be good enough to work on most if not all HDTV's, for which you could use the LCD NES modded roms with an Everdrive, and play the other Zapper games.
calima
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by calima »

Hyperkin's gun is shipping starting tomorrow. 24.99$, and as expected, it's the cheapest solution: patch adapter specifically for Duck Hunt and the gun tuned to LCDs.

The only question is why it took them so long.
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tokumaru
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by tokumaru »

Game-specific adapters are a big fail IMO. Buying adapters for multiple games gets expensive fast. We can at least hope that all the details of how the software interacts with the hardware are made public so that homebrewers can support these new zappers out of the box.
Last edited by tokumaru on Sun Dec 15, 2019 5:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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rainwarrior
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by rainwarrior »

Unless I'm mistaken about what this is... I think it's literally just the light gun they already had on the market with a different paint job + a cart patch adapter.

So, the software isn't important for homebrewers, it's just a patch for Duck Hunt.

Homebrewers would write for the zapper with the normal interface, but using some sort of lag compensation. The hardware difference with this gun would just be that it works with the LCD, and that comes with everything involved with that (lag, slow response, etc.).

Unless they did something more complicated and actually changed the hardware interface...
calima
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by calima »

Yes, the Zapper should behave as a normal one, just with internals that work with LCDs. The Duck Hunt patch adapter is probably Modern Mallard's one, very likely they bought the design and parts from him after the KS failed (he blogged about custom-ordering 2k of the NES female 72-pin connectors).
knight0fdragon
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by knight0fdragon »

I assume the gun just has a less light tolerance filter, where the original was specifically looking for 15hz light, the Hyperkin one just looks for light (meaning lightbulb trick revival)

A friend and myself played around with tweaking the original zapper to remove the filter, but we could not come up with a way to make it easy to mod without taking the ol soldering iron to it, so we gave up on it.
calima
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Re: NES zapper + LCD

Post by calima »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh_FwTKY8Ss

MadLittlePixel's review, seems to be the first one. Seems he got a defective unit.
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