NES Zapper Mouse for PC Duck Hunt fun

We love watching modders in their neverending quest to repurpose old Nintendo peripherals in new and exciting ways, so we thought it was pretty clever when Auburn University engineering student and PowerGlove Mouse inventor Brandon Morgado used the same gyroscopic mouse properties from his first hack to jury-rig an NES Zapper light gun for playing Duck Hunk emulators on his PC. Much simpler than the PowerGlove hack (i.e. no circuit diagrams or multimeters needed), the NES Zapper Mouse merely requires rewiring the gun's trigger to control the left-click of a gyro mouse, which is rather inelegantly duct-taped to the barrel (but like Morgado himself claims, he's an engineer and not an artist). Hey Brandon, since this could theoretically be used to control the aim on any game, what do you think about combining an old PowerPad with a keyboard for the total NES-themed immersive FPS experience?

[Via Joystiq]

[Joe Smith @ Mar 19th 2006 7:57PM]

well, evan, what you said at the end of your post, that sounds like the revolution, so you just have to wait a bit.

[fxtt @ Mar 19th 2006 7:59PM]

LOL

[kleger @ Mar 19th 2006 8:33PM]

some duct tape and two wires are all thats needed to get onto engadget now eh?

[eskimo @ Mar 19th 2006 9:27PM]

Hm, I'd like to look into this. Wonder how well it handles Unreal Tournament or Counter Strike. Interesting idea, though. As Joe said, it seems very Revolution-esque, but I like how he pays homage to the NES. I was lucky enough to be born right around the time the SNES was really kicking in, so I have lots of fond memories of Duck Hunt and the like (Even though it was considered retro by then, oh well). Let's just hope Nintendo doesn't screw up the Revolution, this type of thing should really open up some new doors for them. Especially (although it probably won't go this way for their first-party games) First-person shooters.

Anyhow, I digress. Kudos, Brandon, but be prepared to see some competition in the near future, good ideas like this don't go un-spoofed for long.

[FredFred @ Mar 19th 2006 10:55PM]

Is it just me, or does that look like an actual mouse (of the cheese-eating, squeaking variety) taped to the end of the gun in the picture?

[Mr Wavetheory @ Mar 19th 2006 11:04PM]

Blogger talks about Sexism and Racism at Google

Google why are you so racist and sexist?

[GlobLog @ Mar 19th 2006 11:08PM]

So is it really a joystick on the pic or a workman's tool? Seems to...(visi me clicking on the link)

[Av4rice @ Mar 19th 2006 11:08PM]

How would it work in an FPS? All the conventional ones currently always aim at the center of the screen. Moving your mouse to aim really just changes where the character is "looking" and the actual crosshairs fall wherever the center of this view is.

If the gun worked the same as a mouse, you'd turn the gun to the side to aim somewhere and the view would turn to the side, but the crosshairs would still be in the middle of the screen as usual. It wouldn't really match up. The crosshairs and where your bullets go would be a different location from where your controller gun is pointing.

You could mod the game to have the view static and the crosshairs reflect where the gun is pointing (like regular light gun games) but then you'd need some separate control to change where the camera is pointing. It might shift the view when your crosshairs are on the edge of the screen, but it's easy to see how cumbersome that would be.

Lastly, you could have the gun control acceleration in view movement. So when it's pointed at the center, the view doesn't change; when you move it to the left, the view moves slowly to the left; when you move it way to the left, the view moves quickly to the left. Again, this strays from the gun-aim analogy.

There's a reason lightgun games are different from regular FPS games.

[Earl @ Nov 27th 2006 3:23PM]

Even some of the most late-breaking games, like Quake 4 for example, have an option to disable mouselook :D so there ya go :D I use that to make playing with my P5 glvoe a little more manageable.

[Mr Wavetheory @ Mar 20th 2006 12:45AM]

Link to article about Sexism and Racism at Google. Incredible how only 1 woman sits on the executive management team at Google and only 3 non Caucasians are executives.


http://mrwavetheory.blogspot.com/2006/03/google-why-are-you-so-sexist-and.html

[DarkFader @ Mar 20th 2006 12:50AM]

engadget is becoming hack-a-day!

[bowlhed @ Mar 20th 2006 6:14AM]

putting the mouse there will totally upset the balance of the weapon and as we all know balance is crucial to hitting the target

[Red Line @ Mar 20th 2006 7:37AM]

The idea is novel. I mean, it would be almost cool to play duck hunt with like he does. And if he figured out movement, maybe
foot pedals or something in FPS�s and the gyro mouse being just camera movement, then that could be cool.
But yeah, the hack is like it says �very easy�. And of course �hack� anymore means anything that does something at all it
wasn�t originally designed for.

[x23 @ Mar 20th 2006 8:40AM]

hey Mr Wavetheory. go spam your shitty blog no one cares about somewhere else. this article is about a NES gun combined with a gyro mouse. has nothing to do with sexism or racism at google.

which is something you probably made up. cause google fired your ass for not staying on topic. go to hell. take your lameass blog with you. thanks.

i'd rather read spam comments about great knock-off rolex from russia than your crap.

[eskimo @ Mar 20th 2006 2:41PM]

@Av4rice: Hm, good point. It would be interesting to see, though, if one could take the same concept as this gun, and use a laser point-esque device such as tohse use in optical mice, so as you move the gun and aim it around the room, the cursor on the computer changes. That way you wouldn't have to aim at just the screen. But of course, then you'd have to rig up a monitor/headset type of thing (so you could look at the screen even if it's really behind you), and go for the full VR immersion trick.

[eskimo @ Mar 20th 2006 2:54PM]

Although (Sorry to double-post so quickly), it would be an interesting idea to keep the Zapper Mouse, and simply convince the chaps who made the 24-screen workstation to try for 48-screens and go 360-degrees. Although it would be bit more disconcerting than a VR headset would be, it could work, and it'd be a heck of a lot cooler in my opinion.

[zkostik @ Sep 18th 2007 9:25PM]

I did a similar thing with my Gyration mouse (those blue curvy ones they had), although I didn't mount it to a gun (I don't have one to begin with) but just flipped it upside down so the left mouse button is in the trigger position and I taped the movement button so it always tracks movement while in game. I played through the Painkiller demo and it wicket fun, but my hand got pretty tired afterwards. Mounting it to a gun would be really awesome but I don't feel like risking the $100 mouse for that. A nice commercial product like this would be terrific!