Home-Computer Light Guns

Light pens and light guns for the Atari 8-bit, Apple II, PET, C64, Spectrum, MSX and more, down to the port pin.

Firearms

Home-Computer Light Guns · Deep Dive

Home-Computer Light Guns

Before the console guns, the light pen.

Light pens and light guns for the Atari 8-bit, Apple II, PET, C64, Spectrum, MSX and more, down to the port pin.

Photo: Magnum Light Phaser (Sinclair-branded, for the ZX Spectrum) by Boffy b · CC BY 2.5

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    Volumes

    1. Vol 1 The Light Pen — From SAGE to the Home Computer Why a pen on a 1950s air-defence console needed no position hardware, why a pen on a television did, and why the home computers that built that hardware into their video chips had light guns before most consoles
    2. Vol 2 Atari 400/800, XL, XE and the XE Game System ANTIC's light-pen latch on the joystick trigger line, Atari's own light pens, and the XG-1 light gun as a computer peripheral: pins, registers, software and games
    3. Vol 3 Commodore — PET, VIC-20, C64 and C128, Amiga Pin 6 of the game port and the VIC and VIC-II light-pen registers; why a C64 gun from one maker so often fails with another maker's games; the Defender 64 and the Light Fantastic pack; and the Amiga's beam trigger
    4. Vol 4 Sinclair and Amstrad — the Spectrum, the CPC, the Plus Range and GX4000 A computer with no latch at all and the guns that worked round it through a tape socket, a sound chip's port and the joystick interface; the CPC's 6845 on pin 47 of the expansion connector; and the Trojan Phazer on the Plus range
    5. Vol 5 BBC Micro, MSX, Apple II, Thomson and the Atari STE The BBC's 6845 light-pen strobe on pin 9 of the analogue port and the arithmetic that turns its address into a position; MSX1 with no latch and MSX2's V9938 with one; the Apple II's pens on their own cards; the French computers that shipped with a pen; and Atari's last light-gun port
    6. Vol 6 Side by Side, and Using One Today Seven latch formats compared; calibration, dark targets and averaging as each maker described them; why one maker's gun so rarely worked with another's games; and what it takes to run, emulate or bench-test a home-computer gun now