NES Zapper

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Image:Zapper.jpg Image:FamicomLightGun.jpg The NES Zapper or Famicom Light Gun in Japan is a pistol-shaped electronic light gun sold as part of the original Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 and the Nintendo Famicom in 1984. The Japanese iteration was a realistic portrayal of a revolver style hand gun, but when released in North America was made to look like an unrealistic science fiction ray gun that also tied into the design of the NES. Early Zappers were gray, but later the color was changed to a neon orange due to the fact that many likened the device too much to an actual gun. It allowed players to aim at the TV and, depending on the game, shoot pixelated ducks, clay pigeons, gangsters, and many other obvious targets.

The Zapper has a comparatively resistant trigger that takes quite a bit of force to pull back. The trigger manifests a loud characteristic 'pang' noise when pulled. The shape of the gun is comfortable, but there is no real grip to speak of. After a while, sweat and grease would build up on the surface of the plastic, making it difficult to hold. Additionally, enough trigger pulling over a duration would cause many people to have their muscles become tired in their hand or forearms. Since then, light guns now have much less resistance on their triggers.

1 Technical overview
2 Games
3 Miscellaneous
4 See also
5 External link

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Technical overview

When the trigger was pulled, the game blanked out the screen with a black background for one frame, then, for one additional frame, drew a solid white rectangle around the sprite the user was supposed to be shooting at. The photodiode at the back of the Zapper would detect these changes in intensity and send a signal to the NES to indicate whether it was over a lit pixel or not. A drop followed by a spike in intensity signaled a hit. Multiple sprites were supported by flashing a solid white rectangle around each potential sprite, one per frame.

It was possible to cheat in games by changing the brightness and contrast of the TV, or pointing the gun at a bright light. The gun would think it was pointing at a solid white target and report a hit. If there were multiple targets, The "hit" target was the first to be lit with the white square. Note: this was not as consistent with a Fluorescent lamp due to the possible differences in timing of the lamp's flicker vs the timing of the TV's refresh rate.

This cheat, especially pointing at an incandescent light bulb, seems to go against the drop - spike requirement, but it worked (and killed game play). Warning: changing the brightness and contrast so this cheat works can greatly decrease the life of the TV and looked bright and washed out. Pointing at a bare bulb seems to work better than covered, and cheap incandescent bulbs seems to work better than higher quality bulbs.

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Games

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Miscellaneous

The orange Zapper appears as the weapon used by the title character of Captain N: The Game Master, a cartoon and comic book series.
Recently, G4's Attack of the Show made the Snapper, a Sniper Rifle version of the Zapper designed to be used with Duck Hunt. More information can be found here.

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