This is just an idea and I honestly don't know know enough of the nuances of working with video signals to make it happen but...
Everyone knows "traditional" CRT light guns don't work on HD displays. AFAIK there isn't a way to adapt mounted or IR guns for use with these classic gun games (outside of emulation)..
As I understand it the way classic light guns work is this...
The video signal going into the CRT instructs the CRT to paint the image 1 pixel at a time, starting at the top left and painting the whole row across, then the left side of the next row and across, and so on until the entire image is on the screen, then it starts painting the next frame.
Meanwhile the gun has a photo sensor and this photo sensor essentially provide a yes/no signal (I say yes/no because I'm assuming it's a lot more fuzzy than a logical high/low)... yes meaning that yes the gun is currently pointed directly at the pixel currently being drawn on the CRT (ie: the electron gun is pointing direct at the photo sensor), or no it's not.
based on which pixel is being drawn when the photo diode is producing a "yes" signal we know where on the screen the gun is pointing. "Calibration" on these systems comes in the form of timing offset meaning that when the "yes" signal comes in the game assumes that the real location was 5 pixels ago (hence why most of these older games only had you shoot the center of the screen to calibrate).
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Assuming my summary of how these things work is correct (it may not be, I'm no expert) lets consider a mounted gun that produces an analog
Y signal. From this we know the position of the gun. If our theoretical converter board had the sync signal from the video output then we would know which pixel on the screen the CRT is supposed to be drawing.
From the sync signal we'd need to to be able to calculate the resolution of this video signal as well when a new frame starts. From there we can take the analog positional signal, calculate which video sync pulse(s) mach up, and send a simulated "yes" signal back to the game board.
For this to work I'd suspect it would have to be very fast, and this converter would require it's own stand-alone calibration in order to calibrate the analog position of the gun to the screen, then use the in-game calibration to calibrate the converter board to the Game PCB.
If it works however it would mean that you could play classic CRT Light gun arcade boards on an LCD screen using a mounted gun, or something like the Sega IR gun setup. (there is even someone who developed a Wii remote to analog gun system, so that would work as well).
I have no real ambition to build this at the moment but the idea struck me earlier today so I wanted to put it out there.
Everyone knows "traditional" CRT light guns don't work on HD displays. AFAIK there isn't a way to adapt mounted or IR guns for use with these classic gun games (outside of emulation)..
As I understand it the way classic light guns work is this...
The video signal going into the CRT instructs the CRT to paint the image 1 pixel at a time, starting at the top left and painting the whole row across, then the left side of the next row and across, and so on until the entire image is on the screen, then it starts painting the next frame.
Meanwhile the gun has a photo sensor and this photo sensor essentially provide a yes/no signal (I say yes/no because I'm assuming it's a lot more fuzzy than a logical high/low)... yes meaning that yes the gun is currently pointed directly at the pixel currently being drawn on the CRT (ie: the electron gun is pointing direct at the photo sensor), or no it's not.
based on which pixel is being drawn when the photo diode is producing a "yes" signal we know where on the screen the gun is pointing. "Calibration" on these systems comes in the form of timing offset meaning that when the "yes" signal comes in the game assumes that the real location was 5 pixels ago (hence why most of these older games only had you shoot the center of the screen to calibrate).
--------------------
Assuming my summary of how these things work is correct (it may not be, I'm no expert) lets consider a mounted gun that produces an analog
Y signal. From this we know the position of the gun. If our theoretical converter board had the sync signal from the video output then we would know which pixel on the screen the CRT is supposed to be drawing.From the sync signal we'd need to to be able to calculate the resolution of this video signal as well when a new frame starts. From there we can take the analog positional signal, calculate which video sync pulse(s) mach up, and send a simulated "yes" signal back to the game board.
For this to work I'd suspect it would have to be very fast, and this converter would require it's own stand-alone calibration in order to calibrate the analog position of the gun to the screen, then use the in-game calibration to calibrate the converter board to the Game PCB.
If it works however it would mean that you could play classic CRT Light gun arcade boards on an LCD screen using a mounted gun, or something like the Sega IR gun setup. (there is even someone who developed a Wii remote to analog gun system, so that would work as well).
I have no real ambition to build this at the moment but the idea struck me earlier today so I wanted to put it out there.
