Homemade Dreamcast Lightgun?

HotDog-Cart · Post by **HotDog-Cart** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:20 am

I'm a cheapskate (as some of you can tell), and I dont have the time or money to buy a Dreamcast Lightgun from ebay.

So I was wondering, could I build on?

I have a green Famiclone Colt Lightgun from my old Famiclone.

I was wondering if somehow I could convert this to work in the dreamcast.

Like, could I just jut off the Famiclone end of the lightgun plug, and wireup a dreamcast end? (Like, cut off the male part of the Gun, and put a dreamcast controller male on the end?)

I would also need somehow to put atleast 1 button on the gun, so I could reload. (Unless House of the dead 2 has an automatic reload option, where it reloads for me when Im out of ammo.)

Can someone help me out.

Thanks.

DK · Post by DK » Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:40 am

Don't think it would work. Its like saying "Can I get a nes controller working on my Dreamcast" but more difficult

Ecit. Without doing some major and scary looking harware mods.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:51 am

DK wrote:Don't think it would work. Its like saying "Can I get a nes controller working on my Dreamcast" but more difficult

http://benheck.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=18901

HotDog-Cart · Post by **HotDog-Cart** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 12:31 pm

It sounds possible.

-=FamilyGuy=- · Post by **-=FamilyGuy=-** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 2:22 pm

It wouldn't be that easy, you should figure out how the NES lightgun works, and them convert its signal to the way the Dreamcast's lightgun works.

And knowing NES controllers use clocks and sync to input buttons (http://devcast.dcemulation.com/mods/unicont/nes.php)

The lighgun should be a bit complicated to achieve.

But if you got a PIC writer and talent, you could use the PARTS of the NES lightgun dto do your DC one.

Thank You !

-=FamilyGuy=-

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 2:51 pm

Actually, the Dreamcast lightgun is highly complex, and the NES/famicom/famiclone gun is dead simple.

The NES gun is basically a photometer attached to circuit to send a pulse when it sees light to the console. Hence, why where the targets end up being white squares for a split second.

The Dreamcast gun uses a more advanced optical device that can measure the time it takes the scanning beam to get to where it is pointing, not only on a low-res TV, but a VGA monitor as well. Which is why the entire screen flashes. I seem to recall, but am not positive, of it being able to measure phosphur decay, which means it could track where you are without flashing, but this requires the entire screen to be lit, and the TV to be at a fair brightness. It is interfaced to the DC using a bi-directional 1.5Mbps data link, with a protocol simular to USB.

HotDog-Cart · Post by **HotDog-Cart** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 3:35 pm

Oh, so its just easier to go buy one?

THON · Post by **THON** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 3:39 pm

Isn't everything?