Wireless Gun Controller

[symbolx]

I was thinking the other day it would be cool to turn the old NES zapper into a wireless controller for the PC. It would be cool to use this for first person shooter games like counterstrike. I did some searching on google and didn't find much other than some gun controllers that only worked for specific games. I'm not a huge expert but is it possible to create something like this? What sort of sensors would I need to detect which way the gun is moving in the person's hand to update the cursor/crosshair?

 

[dknguyen]

Did the old NES gun have a receiver? Or does it read colours straight off the screen (like arcade guns)...I would think if it was the second it would be mostly a software thing...and very hard to do.

If I take your words literally though, you would use a gyroscopes and accelerometers to track the motion of the gun (similar to how you feel yourself going forward or backwards or whatever with your eyes closed)...accuracy would suck hardcore. THat's what the Wii does, though I don't think it's accurate enough to aim soley on inertial movements.

 

[Andy1845c]

I used to wonder how that NES gun worked.

It had no other hardware, so it had to read colors off the screen. The only game I ever had that used it was the infamous "duckhunt" and it seems to me the screen flashed funny colors when you pulled the trigger, and as long as it was pointed in the general direction of the screen, you got a
"hit".

I think it would suck for computer games for the accuracy factor as dknguyen mentioned.

That thing was huge. It would be ackward with a small computer monitor.

 

[symbolx]

The NES zapper basically causes the screen to go white for a second when you pull the trigger and the target is made into a black square by the software. (or i could have that backwards). But basically its a light gun.

After I posted this I was thinking about the gyro method Dknguyen described although I don't know much about it. Do you happen to know why it is so inaccurate?

--Update--
**broken link removed**

After reading this article it looks like ultrasonics might be a much more accurate method for doing this.
I did some browsing on google and found www.in2games.com that probably uses this type of system even though they aren't revealing that information.
Thanks for helping out guys.

 

[dknguyen]

Gyros and accelerometers drift which is why they are so bad. THey aren't good at keeping absolute positions in time. THe best ones are the ones used by nuclear submarines to navigate with no landmarks underwater (and those still read the ocean floor for landmarks and surface to recalibrate their position. I think they can run up to 8 months...but imagine how big and expensive they are.) They are good for measuring momentary inertial events however (ie. you could make a wireless glove with an accelerometer in it, and a wireless vest with a motor in it, so you could punch the wearer from far away).

THat's a neat trick making the screen turn white...but how do you shot down a particular duck if there are two ducks on screen? THe other way that the SNES uses is to have an infrared receiver on top of the monitor, but that is dependent on the way the gun itself works.

 

[symbolx]

Both ducks have their own box and the light gun has a light sensor in it. Actually what you said is an issue for that game cuz you might have noticed that sometimes two ducks die in one shot! (ive done that before).

 

[dknguyen]

Oh, I never owned a NES so I've never played it and killed 2 ducks at once before.

 

[ClydeCrashKop]

Maybe that worked like a light pen detecting pixel position in the frame as it lit up.
Circuit Cellar magazine June 2006 Page 38. “Nontraditional Cursor Control” is a motion sensing glove with accelerometers that sends mouse signals to a computer. Article, circuits and source code for ATmega32.