8 replies to this topic

[the.golden.ax]

Mad Dog on Projection Screen

I'd recalled seeing this back in the 90's and found a flyer for it.

If they can't make gun games work on big screens now, how did they do it back then?

Did the rear projector have CRT behind it? Would those "make your own projector" kits then work with gun games?

AX

[DaveD]

I'm not at all familiar with that game but judging by the fact that it's a laser disc game I wonder if the gun served as a sort of remote control rather than a targeting device. Kind of a Dragon's Lair scripted thing with the ability to choose paths?

[Retro Rogue]

the.golden.ax, on Sun Jan 9, 2011 10:45 AM, said:

Mad Dog on Projection Screen

I'd recalled seeing this back in the 90's and found a flyer for it.

If they can't make gun games work on big screens now, how did they do it back then?

Did the rear projector have CRT behind it? Would those "make your own projector" kits then work with gun games?

AX

Nah, projection light gun games have been around for decades and light gun arcade games since the 30's. Has nothing to do with the LCD/Plasma issue, which is in trying to use light gun mechanisms based around raster scan tv's work in an environment they weren't designed for - plasma/lcd.

Here's typical 70's EM machine light gun games:

http://www.pinrepair...ade/skeetsh.htm

http://www.pinrepair...ade/duckhun.htm

Here's some typical projection screen ones from the 70's:
http://arcadeflyers....&id=141&image=1
http://www.arcadefly...&id=408&image=1
http://images.wikia....layShooting.jpg

In fact in the 70's it was almost impossible not to walk in to an arcade and see a projection screen light gun game like these duck hunting/skeet shooting games.

There's of course plenty of current ones -
http://images.webmag...he_Machines.jpg
http://arcadeflyers....=videodb&id=614
http://arcadeflyers....id=5039&image=1
http://arcadeflyers....id=3297&image=2

As far as Mad Dog, as the manual clearly shows it is indeed a light gun:

http://pdf.textfiles...als/ARCADE/K-R/ (scroll down to Mad Dog McCree TM-MD01, for some reason AA kept butchering the direct link every time I tried to post it).

Edited by wgungfu, Sat Jan 15, 2011 1:07 AM.

[rmaerz]

wgungfu, on Sat Jan 15, 2011 12:51 AM, said:

In fact in the 70's it was almost impossible not to walk in to an arcade and see a projection screen light gun game like these duck hunting/skeet shooting games.

Wild Gunman is the one I remember from our local arcade and it was a HUGE hit. I could only get to play it a few times.

I remember in the corner of the arcade they had two of these along with two other projection games one of which was probably Duck Hunt. And across from those was Atari's Fire Truck.

[roland p]

the.golden.ax, on Sun Jan 9, 2011 10:45 AM, said:

Mad Dog on Projection Screen

I'd recalled seeing this back in the 90's and found a flyer for it.

If they can't make gun games work on big screens now, how did they do it back then?

Did the rear projector have CRT behind it?

My guess is they used a crt-type projector. This produces the same kind of image a crt-television would.

the.golden.ax, on Sun Jan 9, 2011 10:45 AM, said:

Would those "make your own projector" kits then work with gun games?

Only if they use crt-projector-tubes So I guess not.

[the.golden.ax]

Yes, those kits contain basically two magnifying glasses that you build into a box with a tube tv at one end. One makes it big and flips it, the other makes it bigger and flips it again. Output is enlarged and the correct direction. I wonder if it's worth trying for all those old gun games that have to be played on a tiny screen..


AX

[Mirage]

Blech, nevermind. I think I wasn't thinking about it right. I'd still be surprised if one of those make-your-own kits would work though.

[Retro Rogue]

roland p, on Sat Jan 15, 2011 9:33 AM, said:

the.golden.ax, on Sun Jan 9, 2011 10:45 AM, said:

Mad Dog on Projection Screen

I'd recalled seeing this back in the 90's and found a flyer for it.

If they can't make gun games work on big screens now, how did they do it back then?

Did the rear projector have CRT behind it?

My guess is they used a crt-type projector. This produces the same kind of image a crt-television would.

Guys, the point of my post is no - you don't even need television for a light gun to work. Ala the EM and original projection screen games, it simply depends on how and what the gun mechanism is designed to detect. Most likely the one in Mad Dog is similar to the non-CRT based projection guns which use the standard high contrast light detection method. Ala when the trigger is pulled replace the screen with all black and simple white targets for the gun to detect if you're aimed at. This method is not bound to a CRT, though in CRT based versions the sampling time is usually bound to the screen refresh rate (which is again why the CRT versions using this method don't work on plasma/lcd).

In fact, you can clearly see it uses that method here:

[the.golden.ax]

I guess I had a double meaning behind my post though, and your info clears both up. A) they programmed Mad Dog (and others) to work with those screens, but B) not posted, my desire to make older console light games work on a bigger screen... they are already programmed for CRT.

The history lesson and old shooting gallery type things were awesome. Thanks for posting those. I'm always amazed just how old the concepts that some of this tech stuff is based on really is.

AX