miss the podcast, used to watch cotgw a bunch in high school. Nice to see this video randomly getting recommended again and picked up by the algorithm

The “how” has been keeping me up at night, among other random questions. Thank you for this. You are my hero.

I was interested in the NES Zapper and came across this video and the rest of your "The Way Games Work" series. Great series, I really enjoyed it.

60fps on the NES... better than next gen consoles

Didn't know about this series until today. I love how informative, entertaining and educational this whole thing is.

Wow, your videos are top notch. This guy deserves way more subscribers.

Man, I'd completely forgotten about this channel.. I'm even still subscribed!

I loved this episode. Thanks for making it.

I love how you can condense things down into an explainable level. :3

Really love these videos, thank you for making them. There's few things I enjoy more than learning how tech works.

I don't know why I am only now finding your videos dude but they are awesome!

Thank you so much, this has been so puzzling to me for many years!

dude that was pretty sick i'd love it if you made more of these

Hi COGW, great video! I teach NES game development at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City. My take on why the zapper doesn't work on none-CRT TVs is still based on the scan lines but more from the software side. When scan lines run all the way to the bottom of the screen, it takes time go back up, this time difference is called vblank. This brief moment (about 24.5uS) is when NES does all the updates. The overall refresh rate (including vblank) is universal to all NTSC(64uS 228 cycles) or PAL CRT TVs so the zapper knows exactly when to look at the screen. With none-CRT TVs, NES can't predict what is on the screen anymore so the zapper stop working.

Amazing how complete the info are, love this videos

Roo!! Comes back! You are the man!!!

You sir have just explained your way to a new subscription. Good job to you, I look forward to seeing more!

I came to learn about a Zapper, Instead I found an awesome channel full of very informative vidya game videos. Great channel. Subscribed.

You keep blowing my mind with these things.

Great guide man, how simple things were back then but yet, so revolutionary.

Great video. Entertaining, informational and not annoying. Thumbs up

thanks.. one of my life mystery solved..

Awesome! I've been trying to figure it out for so long! Thank you!

Thanks for this in-depth explanation. If KZfaq subscriptions were still actually useful, I would totally subscribe.

Great episode and great show very well made. Keep up the good work, you gained a new follower.

Wow, this was an extremely informative and interesting video! I subscribed to watch the rest of them.

Finally someone who's able to give a simple, easy-to-understand explanation to how the Zapper works.

Excellent video. I found the CRT explanation with the latency quite convincing.

Thanks for the explanation; this sheds light on something I remember as a kid. As you said, in games like Duck Hunt, the quick darkening of the screen was not much of a hindrance, but I remember owning a port of one of my favorite arcade games at the time called "Operation Wolf". Unlike Duck Hunt, where you only take one or two shots at a time, in Operation Wolf, the screen is always full of enemies and you are constantly blasting away at anything and everything the whole time. The darkening of the screen in his case made the game essentially unplayable. I had to resort to using the regular controller, which just moved a crosshairs around the screen. It was a disappointingly poor emulation of the arcade experience, where you got to use an Uzi that didn't blank out the screen and actually had a vibrating mechanism to produce a recoil-like effect when fired.

this is an awesome video. well presented, and factual. there's lots of rare & good information. also thanks for addressing the rumours and getting into the technical details. best video ever.

Thanks for the explanation, always wondered how the Zapper worked.

where has this channel been all my life?

Great, professional video! good to see some people have figured out how to present information.

epic epoch in the background!! Chrono trigger for life! Also, great vid, very informative

I need to get my hands on a CRT TV so I can use my Zapper and Super Scope again. Great job like always, Roo!

I grew up in the 80's. A great time. A fantastic time. A simpler better time. No helmets, no safety crap. You learned lessons the good way, the hard way.

You, my friend, have just earned a sub. Keep up the great work!

Fantastic video! Very informative

It's been so long since I wanted this Big Question to be Answered by somebody for me =D Thanks a lot man! Nice explanation

nice. i was really puzzled by this looking back at my childhood.

Great video - just discovered , nice interesting breakdown & footage :)

That was an excellent video. I'm by no means stupid but having tried to digest what was going on on an article I found online I was still baffled - your video explains what is going on perfectly. Something I've wondered about since being about 5 years old, lol. I guess technically speaking, the screen is shooting the gun. Fascinating stuff, thank you.

This was a GREAT video!

Awesome video!

Asalieri brought me here, I think I'll stay. Great video. Subscribed, gotta watch everything on the channel asap.

Good work :) love the episode

Another great video good sir. Keep up the good work and teach the masses about vidya games.

Cave Johnson, you're back!

Great video! Took me 30years to get round to working out how these things work lol. Always assumed it was something to do with the screen flicker but didnt realise about the 'rectangles' showing up for a frame. Subbed. :)

I've always wondered how it works. Thanks!

Thank you for this video!

Really interesting Roo!

Ohhh, BOY! Maybe you can help me remember the arcade I keep remembering! It was a shooting game, but the video part was a hologram. i remember seeing the rotating drum whenever the action changed.

thank you.very well explained.

Detailed and interesting thanks.

Great video.

very cool video man, I always did wonder how this worked.

Very educational video.

Okay, bro. You just got favorite and subscribe, because that poster of the Epoch is EPIC! Crono Trigger is the greatest video game of it's time. Still playable today

Hey, thanks! This looks really cool!

Great video

Nicely informative.

Very good video! Cheers!

NES Zapper - The Way Games Work "Psshh! I already know how that thing works, light detection!" *12 minutes and 32 seconds later* "I-I have so much to learn..." Very informative stuff there Roo !

Love the Perfect Strangers clip.

Hey very interesting as usual Roo !

strobe light covered with 5 sheets of opaque black construction paper with a small square cut out always worked when I was a kid

Thanks. I can't stop seeing the white square now...

that was cool , i enjoyed watching it. thank u

awesome info man. good job

I always feel smarter after watching these episodes. :)

Great in-depth explanation! It might not be completely correct to say that modern LCD / Plasma screens update ALL pixels at once, but I see what you meant. They often use some form of multiplexing and display maybe a few rows at a time. For plasma TV's it's even more complex - many of them use a similar system to single-chip DLP in that they display sequential "bit-planes" to make up the shades of colours. They need to do this for Red / Green / Blue too, but they update much faster than DLP's.

Not gonna lie, found you through vsauce. Totally glad I did, this is awesome.

Nicely explained. Great video! Reminds me of my childhood. I still have that nitendo game console, can't wait to gather all the equipment and start playing. Now the only thing I'm missing is a ctr tv xD ...subscribed btw! :)

Great video, more like this please :)

that caught me of guard too.

Why aren't you guys more popular?

@HAMMlicius So true, your videos are pretty awesome, very detailed and edited in a way so everybody can understand. Keep up the awesome work :)

its funny how old technology was actually so clever and advanced for its time. So much of what we have now really still comes from this kind of stuff

The sequence where the screen turns black, drawing a target around each separate target one at a time, is an example of SERIAL PROCESSING. Despite how quickly the gun-shooting process is completed, each step is still completed only one at a time.

Some Zapper games do use scanlines. On a CRT, the Zapper's photodiode is accurate enough to see up/down if the software polls it once per scanline (once per 113.667 cycles), just not left/right. Operation Wolf uses a white screen to tell up/down and then sends a white "cloud" from the left side to tell left/right with sequential targeting. The homebrew game Zap Ruder does the same thing.

i have something that wasn't mentioned. when i was a kid i found out if you point the zapper in the upper left corner of the tv it would ALWAYS give you a hit in duck hunt, but specifically the "Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt" cart. it worked on every tv i ever tried it on, as a kid. but i never tried it on another shooting game (i only had that and Gotcha!, but i sucked so bad at gotcha! i never figured that game out). occasionally you would have to angle the light gun a little different for it to work. my guess was the light was following the curvature of the screen. but i always thought it was inverted, flashed white and showed black for the targets, funny how the eyes play tricks lol. oh and i only tried it with the orange and grey light gun. never had the grey one.

6:02 - Perfect Strangers!

super cool stuff

4:38 Using that principle it is possible to develop a game which the zapper works on HDTV. All you need is to calibrate the input lag before playing by pointing the zapper at the TV screen.

very nice, very nice. subscribed!

I meant the flair and the better generational fitting of devices and technology, but you're right in that, too! :)

can you believe these thing still work just as good?

Your videos plain incredible! You leave no detail unturned or questions unanswered. How long does it take you to get enough information to actually make a video though?From what I can guess, probably a while. Keep up the good work! :)

I miss this game I used to play it all the time it was my fav... But haven't play it in a whole tho

Wow, very technical.

Great video! Very informative and well-made. One thing: Zapper guns don't work with some late model high grade CRTs. I found out the hard way.

Nrrrrg I want that Epoch poster!

Always wondered

great vid thanks

Is that seriously a poster of the Epoch on the wall? That's amazing.

Looks like the Zapper will get some more time in the spotlight with the Duck Hunt Dog coming in as a fighter in the new Smash Bros game.

diggin the aperture shirt

@AMTProductions1 Perhaps not, but I was using it to mean a peripheral that was made available after the initial console was first sold, which it was.

I loved my zapper, never had anything else but duckhunt for it, though.