24th March 2005, 3:25 PM
DJ/ At what point did I ever say I dont understand how a Zapper works? I guess I should have said "Would a tft screen be compatible with the Zapper".
Here's exactly how it works:
In TVs there is an "Electron Gun" that looks like a big light bulb. The function of this electron gun is to use electricity and heat up an element, and boil off electrons. A set of electro-magnetic coils then repel and direct the flow of these loose electrons at a very high speed towards the inside of the TV screen. This is all happening behind the TV tube glass. These electrons are being generated in the back of the TV tube, and are shot directly out towards you. What stops most of these loose and high speed electrons is the front of the tube which is made up of very tiny capsules of phosphorous material that momentarily give off light as they are hit by these loose high speed electrons. You can actually see the tiny capsules that look to be red, yellow, and blue. Your monitor is rated at xx dots per inch, which means that there are xx of these clusters of red, yellow, and blue capsules (called pixels - short for picture elements) in each linear inch of the front of your computer monitor. If you look close enough, you can actually see these pixels.
Some of those loose high speed electrons make it past the phosphor screen and come straight at you.
Inside the Nintendo Zapper Gun or any such device is a "detector". The Nintendo Zapper Gun does not actually shoot anything out, but it actually gets hit by the TV's bullets that are the loose high speed electrons which are generated in the back of the TV where it gets really warm.
How does the Zapper Gun know where you aimed? The electrons are boiled off. The magnetic field on the back repels and accelerates the electrons towards the front. And then, there are guide electromagnets on the side and the top/bottom of the tube. With precise timing and monitoring, these guide electro-magnets can direct a very fine beam of loose electrons to each of the red, yellow, and blue pixels. The back electro-magnet determines how much energy that electron has when it hits the particular pixel. By controlling and mixing the amount of high speed electrons going into each of the primary color pixels, different colors can be made. This beam is controlled to sweep from left to right horizontally, then go down one row, then start the horizontal sweep from the left to the right again, and so on. The exact location of the beam at any given time is known by the TV circuitry. When you pull the trigger on the Zapper Gun, the Nintendo system, then reads this information from the TV circuitry, and checks to see if the gun has been hit by an electron beam or bullet. If the Zapper gun has been hit by the electron beam, that means you were aiming at the right spot when the sweep was going through, and you have a direct hit. If the zapper gun is not hit by the electron beam, that means that you must be aiming elsewhere on the screen, and it is considered a miss.
The reason it will not work with LCDs or TFT's or Plasmas, such as those used on Lap-Top computers or big screen TV's use a different technique to get light out of pixels. They do not shoot high-speed electrons into your face, which is what the Zapper Gun needs to function - and so the Nintendo Zapper Gun probably will not work on your big screens or lap-top. A zapper will not work with the 'Blaze Pocket Fami'.
So, in closing, go soak your head.
Here's exactly how it works:
In TVs there is an "Electron Gun" that looks like a big light bulb. The function of this electron gun is to use electricity and heat up an element, and boil off electrons. A set of electro-magnetic coils then repel and direct the flow of these loose electrons at a very high speed towards the inside of the TV screen. This is all happening behind the TV tube glass. These electrons are being generated in the back of the TV tube, and are shot directly out towards you. What stops most of these loose and high speed electrons is the front of the tube which is made up of very tiny capsules of phosphorous material that momentarily give off light as they are hit by these loose high speed electrons. You can actually see the tiny capsules that look to be red, yellow, and blue. Your monitor is rated at xx dots per inch, which means that there are xx of these clusters of red, yellow, and blue capsules (called pixels - short for picture elements) in each linear inch of the front of your computer monitor. If you look close enough, you can actually see these pixels.
Some of those loose high speed electrons make it past the phosphor screen and come straight at you.
Inside the Nintendo Zapper Gun or any such device is a "detector". The Nintendo Zapper Gun does not actually shoot anything out, but it actually gets hit by the TV's bullets that are the loose high speed electrons which are generated in the back of the TV where it gets really warm.
How does the Zapper Gun know where you aimed? The electrons are boiled off. The magnetic field on the back repels and accelerates the electrons towards the front. And then, there are guide electromagnets on the side and the top/bottom of the tube. With precise timing and monitoring, these guide electro-magnets can direct a very fine beam of loose electrons to each of the red, yellow, and blue pixels. The back electro-magnet determines how much energy that electron has when it hits the particular pixel. By controlling and mixing the amount of high speed electrons going into each of the primary color pixels, different colors can be made. This beam is controlled to sweep from left to right horizontally, then go down one row, then start the horizontal sweep from the left to the right again, and so on. The exact location of the beam at any given time is known by the TV circuitry. When you pull the trigger on the Zapper Gun, the Nintendo system, then reads this information from the TV circuitry, and checks to see if the gun has been hit by an electron beam or bullet. If the Zapper gun has been hit by the electron beam, that means you were aiming at the right spot when the sweep was going through, and you have a direct hit. If the zapper gun is not hit by the electron beam, that means that you must be aiming elsewhere on the screen, and it is considered a miss.
The reason it will not work with LCDs or TFT's or Plasmas, such as those used on Lap-Top computers or big screen TV's use a different technique to get light out of pixels. They do not shoot high-speed electrons into your face, which is what the Zapper Gun needs to function - and so the Nintendo Zapper Gun probably will not work on your big screens or lap-top. A zapper will not work with the 'Blaze Pocket Fami'.
So, in closing, go soak your head.