Could a modern light phaser be adapted for retro use?

Strange question? I'm just thinking ahead I suppose! I love my retro consoles, SMS and MD in particular and I also love phaser games. Currently I have a nice CRT tv so the issue at hand isn't a problem, but I guess in the future CRT's are gonna be pretty hard to come by, so I wanted to pick peoples brains.

So does anyone have any ideas how I could get a modern (infra red) phaser to work on an older console, preferably SMS, or alternatively how to get an SMS phaser to work with LCD/Plasma screens. I know how both work but can't seem to think of anyway to combine old and new and as there's some very knowlegable peeps on here I thought a quick brainstorm wouldn't hurt .

 

Im pretty sure the answer is no

 

you might want to check this out:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EMS-TopGu...Attachments&hash=item19ce1f7646#ht_565wt_1181

if you run some old emulators and also MAME should work pretty well..



Also I have been thinking about this other idea.. I cant implement it as I dont know enough; but my theory is that the reason these old light guns as it were do not work on modern sets is that there is a 7 milli second to around 50 or 70 millisecond delay from the way modern TV's like LCD, PLASMA and now LED create the picture so in a sense we are looking at the past in the picture because of delay.. This is enough for the lightgun not to distinguish the flash on screen; The whole screen goes white and the enemy's or targets will be black or something? So the gun sees weather or not the target is on or off. SO IF there is a way to change the timer on the gun to read the flash at a different time and sync it back up the old guns should work on a modern TV! ?? Hmm No idea how accurate my idea is though

 

I like the idea of this. I hope someone figures this one out.
I'd love to wip out the old nes zapper!

 

That's an interesting idea n64user. I would love to be able to have a Zapper work with today's sets. And thanks for clearing up part of the mystery I've experienced before. When I ran my NES through a DVD Recorder in an attempt to record the gameplay with composite, the Zapper wouldn't work. But if I recorded the composite while switching to RF channel 3 it worked again. Timing must have definitely been the issue.

 

Heya no prob; you just reminded me of something I did myself years ago (not to do with the gun though.) But at a time I wanted to recorded some multi-player death matches of Goldeneye.. When I ran the N64 through my DVD recorder and watched the result on the TV it caused a delay so significant that when controlling the character, it brought a whole new meaning to the term "lag" like on call of duty over a dodgy internet connection haha. I put down this lag or "latency" due to the Analogue to Digital converter as the information was going to have to be recorded digitally via binary on DVD rather than the slandered analogue of VHS which was what I started recording death matches on in the 1st place.

 

A CRT draws the screen row by row vs individual lights kicking on a LCD. The Retro Lighgtgun looks for the Scanline draw, the reason why it won't work on LCDs. Interesting that the Dreamcast Lightgun can be used on a 640x480 VGA CRT screen.

There is a way to make the NES Zapper work on a LCD. A complete gut out and installing either a Wii Remote or one of the new light bar style lightguns. The existing trigger could be wired up to the new PCB fitted inside. This will not work on the NES , but there are NES games on the Wii Virtual Console. Not sure if the Remote has been implemented to emulate the Zapper yet, it would be interesting if the NES games got an updated coding.

 

hmm I certainly think its to do with scan line draw too now you mention it.. As with my original theory (although in way still correct) would still mean, how would the light gun distinguish which target it is that your shooting?; imagine; The picture is drawn by a scanning electron beams that go across the screen horizontally. Starting at the top left until it hits the bottom right or something. and as it moves down to update the next line, I would assume its "this timing" that would distinguish what target it would be? With the old CRTs I guess this was called an interlaced picture. something to do with the way the picture was refreshed here in the UK we have 50Hz that's because to us we perceived the best way to see a picture was 25 frames per second thus meaning that the interlaced signal

divides these into odd and even lines and then alternately refreshes them at 25 or 30 frames per second depending on region; US is​

loads better than us in the UK as you get 60hz. So US gets 30 frames per second.
Modern TV's are using p

rogressive scanning. As it scans the entire picture line by line 16 times a second. So images are not split into separate fields like in interlaced scanning. so there is visually no flicker effect.​

So in a way because modern TV's can issue out an interlaced signal (well mine does anyway); it goes back to my thought of the delayed timing​

Again I'm no expert and would gladly welcome being corrected

 

i was thinking through this a while ago too in hopes of getting to play duckhunt, and ended up thinking that the 5ms delay on my tv is the culprit.
no idea though, i have no clue how to generate a 5ms delay in my zapper to test it