Control Mouse With Nes "Duck Hunt" Gun

[yourlocalloser]

I think it would be a rad idea, to be able to control the mouse on my computer running windows xp, with a console gaming gun such as the NES Zapper or the Namco Gun-Con.

Anybody know anything about the possibility of that happening. Are there USB guns?

[TheBellows]

Sounds fun, but unless you’re a genious electronic engineer and programmer i have my doubts.
I think it could be done though, just put a camera inside the gun, make a program that recognizes the screen.
Or maybe you could put a gyro device inside the gun and then calibrate it to the monitor.
Good luck

[kazakore]

After looking into how light guns actually work I would say not.

1. They only work with CRT displays as they rely on the raster scan to work out where you are pointing. I imagine you want to use it with an LCD.

2. You would have to write a piece of software that sent a frame of black followed by a frame of white and was capable of calculating where you are pointing every time you pulled the trigger.

The computer blanks the screen and then paints the entire screen white. It takes time for the electron beam to trace the entire screen while painting it white. By comparing the signal coming from the photodiode with the horizontal and vertical retrace signals, the computer can detect where the electron beam is on the screen when the photodiode first senses its light. The computer counts the number of microseconds that pass between the time the horizontal and vertical retrace signals start and the time the photodiode first senses light. The number of microseconds tells the computer exactly where on the screen the gun is pointing.

[Acidfire]

Can’t be done with an original NES gun. When you fire that the whole screen flashes black and white except certain targets. Since you have as many targets as you have pixels, have fun waiting till the screen is done flashing

You can use a WiiMote as a mouse though

[kazakore]

@Acidfire

You can use a WiiMote as a mouse though

Yep. And quite possibly the Nes Power Glove with a bit of work too.

Although very likely quite inaccurate…

[TheBellows]

@kazakore

After looking into how light guns actually work I would say not.

1. They only work with CRT displays as they rely on the raster scan to work out where you are pointing. I imagine you want to use it with an LCD.

2. You would have to write a piece of software that sent a frame of black followed by a frame of white and was capable of calculating where you are pointing every time you pulled the trigger.

With an unmodified light gun it would definately not work, but it should be possible if you use my camera or gyro sollution and make some special software.
A camera with a wide angle lense could “see” the screen and then you could write software that calculates the distance from the screen edges and puts the cursor in the middle of the camera view.
With some sophisticated software it could calculate the angle from where you shoot from aswell by measuring the edges. That would make it pretty accurate depending on the resolution of the camera i think.

[Uuav (üav)]

this + this is the easiest way, but it’s way less cool than using the NES zapper