How the Nintendo Zapper worked in Slow Motion - The Slow Mo Guys

[@jckatz]

I really want to see the laser scanner at a grocery store checkout. It seems to have mirrors moving very fast

[@yourejustjelley]

I second this

[@thebeardofknowledge]

This ⤴️

[@kuzeyrl]

i fourth this

[@aesbj9228]

Nth this

[@FelkniaMusic]

There are! There are actually a few mirrors, 3 or 4 small spinning in the center, and two bigger ones to spread the beam in several directions when the scanner is operating.

[@Wald246]

I'd love to see an inkjet printer in slow-motion! I think the ink droplets falling on paper would be interesting

[@MrSkinnyWhale]

Even the Slo-mo Guys can't afford to waste that much printer ink

[@Watchyn_Yarwood]

@@MrSkinnyWhale 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@mllarson]

@@MrSkinnyWhale Funny as that is, they could use an Epson Eco Tank printer.

[@DutchBlackMantha]

Sounds great, but it'll probably be tricky to get camera vision there, with the printer head on one side and the paper+roller on the other.

[@kasperchristensen8416]

@@MrSkinnyWhaleHahaha! 😂

[@mrspeeddemon727]

I'm 55 years old, grew up on Nintendo systems when I was younger. I had the Zapper and Duck Hunt and even back then I always wondered how that gun worked. Now I finally know. My life has come full circle. Thank you for taking the time to make this video.

[@Dan-di9jd]

Really? I kind of realized at a young age about how I notice the screen flashing each time I hit it. I thought it was taking a photograph and processing it lol. But it wasn't until one day we had a lamp up near the TV that I realized what it was doing. It was trying to find something white.

[@TheDaringPastry1313]

As a 37 year old now, I was always curious how this worked and I also noticed the whole screen flashing on the menu! Really cool video

[@atpoe2273]

Lol same!

[@godzilladestroyscities1757]

Same.

[@MarmaLloyd]

As a kid I assumed it had a ball in it that could detect trajectory based on calibration. Blew my mind seeing how it was done

[@andreaslu1378]

Same! Also 37 years

[@NerdOfftheRoad]

Me too! You are not alone.

[@chadquigley227]

I’m so glad you pointed out that on “two duck mode” the light boxes appear at separate frames . Because right from the start of the video I already knew how the light gun generally works , but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how it knows WHICH duck you hit when there’s more than one. 15 years or so of watching you and you’ve never disappointed me . Thanks !

[@MarkusAvrelius]

Further you stand better luck hitting the duck since it will cover larger area. Even though the receiver sees through a tunnel vision. That would explain why I always hit it even though I wasn't aiming much I thought it was broken.

[@rsvp9146]

Christmas morning, 1985. Santa left the NES for us. Duck Hunt and Excitebike. Came with the Zapper and the ROB robot thing. I still remember being blown away by the graphics. A huge step up from Atari and Coleco. Always wondered how the Zapper worked. Thanks! They changed it from grey to orange so cops would know it wasnt a real gun. In 80's SoCal, you always heard stories of kids being shot accidentally playing Lasertag. I also remember every market sold cap guns, usually like a old west revolver. You put a roll of caps in it and "BANG". Eventually, all those guns had bright red tips. Then they all disappeared.

[@SydneyCarton2085]

Same, only it was Christmas 1988 and we got Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt and Commando with an NES.

[@ivan4087]

@@SydneyCarton2085 it was 1993-94 for me (but i live in poor third world country caled russia so its normal here)

[@westminsterabbey.6916]

I love these quieter informative videos you do Gav, I’m glad you’ve kept them going after the lockdowns, they’re fascinating

[@pat2rome]

Same! I see "how ___ works" and I get so excited.

[@Geeksmithing]

Exactly. Doesnt have to always be over the top and flashy

[@MARKBaid]

Amazing

[@smittywerbenjagarmanjensen3059]

What lockdowns

[@Geeksmithing]

@@smittywerbenjagarmanjensen3059 bless your heart ❤️

[@UselessDuckCompany]

This game was a gem of my childhood. Once you discover the second controller can control the ducks it's a whole new game.

[@brod520]

Whaaaaat?! No way!

[@tonybeaumont8289]

Wait whaaaat

[@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat]

This feels like a company of ducks trolling people as revenge for Duck Hunt.

[@bskibinski]

Wow memory unlocked!

[@StraveTube]

YOU COULD WHAT??

[@fawstes]

Truly brilliant, no emitters and receivers, no screen calibration, no markers on the screen to inform the receiver of any screen dimension, this was really ahead of its time

[@wayne7521]

Nope there was a receiver that sat on top of tv ... believe it worked like infra red ...to show where gun was aiming , p.s. talking bout uk system ...maybe different

[@maryrose2676]

@@wayne7521 We owned one when I was a kid. Nothing sits on top of tv. It's just the gun.

[@UncleUncleRj]

@@wayne7521 I think you're talking about the Wii. NES had no receiver.

[@johneygd]

@@wayne7521you are probably confused with the superscope for the snes because that one uses a infrared reciever,BUT it still works on some of the same princeples of the nes zapper gun.

[@takemebacktothen]

What are you rambling, this is Not ahead at all. It's really simple, archaic, repetitive and boring gameplay.

[@yetinother]

I used to cheat on this game with my brothers. We had a pull-down shade for the kitchen window that reflected perfectly on the TV in a particular spot I learned that if I pulled the window shade down to exactly the right spot it would mimic the square that the gun picks up, so just before my turn to play I would go into the kitchen and adjust that blind so that I could just point at the reflection of the kitchen window with the gun and score perfect points. Then when it wasn't my turn I would intentionally stand in between the TV in the window to make sure the reflection couldn't allow anybody else to do the same thing.

[@SomeYouTubeTraveler]

That's some big brain brother cheating right there. XD Me, I just never told my bros about how the 2nd-player controller could control the ducks, and I'd hide it under a pillow on my lap and give my brother terrible advice on where it "looks like" the ducks are heading. I've changed a lot since then, and it only took finally getting punched by him as a grown man...

[@CapStar362]

LMAO !!! That is hilarious

[@NoName-ik2du]

But what about the black frame? The reflection would always be there, so the game would never be able to get the black image to confirm you weren't cheating. (Obviously you won't know the answer to this, but it does confuse me.)

[@Ineedanaccountnow0]

Yeah he's just a dirty liar. We literally just watched the explanation, and this guy's cheat is clearly not enough to satisfy the requirements@@NoName-ik2du

[@LarsWilms]

​@@NoName-ik2duyeah and also the gun doesn't see the shape of the square, it's just the "hitbox" of the duck. So whether the shape of the reflected window resembled the hitbox doesn't matter, the gun just sees the difference between light and no light on the specific frames when you're shooting and the specific area you're aiming at.

[@IndyStry]

This is genuinely ahead of its time. So much thinking and programming went even to make sure you won't cheat by pointing it at a white bulb, not to mention nobody back then had slowmo cameras to even figure this out. Do more such smaller but super intriguing videos man!

[@jpe1]

Hardly “ahead of its time” Nintendo copied earlier American duck hunt games, the game goes back to the 1970’s.

[@Jaspertine]

​@@MidwestRainstorms They're at least partially right though. The Magnavox Odyssey had a primitive light gun back in the 1970s. Nintendo didn't invent the peripheral so much as refine it, and make much more enjoyable games. As for copying "earlier American duck hunt games," that's a new one to me, and sounds a bit dubious. Electromechanical light gun games were a thing prior to light gun video games, and Nintendo had dabbled in such technology in the 1970s, but I can't find any articles mentioning specific examples of earlier games that they'd have copied. But I also only did like 2 google searches, so don't take this as the definitive final word.

[@jpe1]

@@MidwestRainstorms I stand by my comment… my parents bought me one for Christmas in 1978, yes the graphics were literally just a white square that went across the screen, but all the core concepts were there, the “gun” that was a photo sensor, the video blanking, the timing… Nintendo just refined the graphics and put some marketing into it, no new innovations at all.

[@lalle5000]

Slowmo wouldn't be necessary though, as they could just tweak the duration of e.g. the black or white boxes as they pleased within the game code

[@Bonde7280]

@@MidwestRainstorms Did you research anything your self, or do you just like to spread misinformation? 😉

[@uroborous01]

I remember when it first came out. I remember my first time playing. I remember how awesome it was. The only person in the room interested in the mystery of how it worked was my electrical engineer father. Now all these years later its so cool to see the whole process in its ballet of technological prowess. It really was the best time to be a kid. And i am so glad i made the effort to get and keep 2 crt tv’s specially for the nes and snes.

[@maboleth]

Indeed! The (S)NES days were the best and most fun days of all the video games. Playing meant fun and enjoyment. There was nothing else.

[@pawnix4122]

I appreciate the slower episodes that you make between the main uploads with Dan. It is nice to get some more lightly edited videos in between to make sure you guys aren't dead.

[@LeeorVardi]

that bit of filming the CRT at super slo-mo alone is worth this video, incredible stuff.

[@user-bw6jg4ej2m]

They have an even better video about that from 5 yrs ago: "How a TV Works in Slow Motion"

[@danieldavis8607]

​@@user-bw6jg4ej2m Thanks! Gonna watch it now.

[@PixxelWizzard-dd5cr]

This is the first explanation of how the zapper worked that I understood. Slowing everything down helped so much. Thank you.

[@TDPEquinox]

I assume it flashes the boxes in two different frames so it can know which one you hit, otherwise it wouldn't be able to tell which of the boxes you're aiming at.

[@Yourtoxicity]

That makes sense. I was wondering how that worked.

[@nekrugderzweite8298]

As far as i know thats correct

[@fe2k10]

Let me see if I understand correctly, when you press the button and there are 2 ducks on the screen, the game will generate 2 frames with white squares, if frame == 1 && white square, duck 1 dies, if frame == 2 && white square, duck 2 dies, is that so?

[@roberine7241]

@@fe2k10 seems correct to me

[@theslowmoguys]

Yeah makes total sense after seeing it in slow mo.

[@lightseeker1813]

as a guy who grew up on this game I can say that was such a legendary demonstration.

[@confushisushi]

I can still hear that dog lol

[@kenwillis8487]

Same here!

[@kenwillis8487]

We got the original Nintendo with Mario and duck hunter in 1986 I was 6 years old! It was a family gift for us kids to share ( one brother two sisters ) I bet my dad played it more in the first month that us kids!

[@jlt131]

including the fact he was just a few inches from the screen, which is how we always got to the higher levels

[@spike3082]

Oh yes we did lol I still have my original zapper just got to get another NES

[@PotentialEn3rgy]

I grew up with this 40 years ago I've always wondered how it worked!! What an amazing piece of engineering!!

[@samuraidoggy]

Lol ure old

[@PierceArner]

Gotta say that no matter what new peripherals they come out with, nothing beats that satisfying, *_“ker-tang!”_* when you pull that old light gun trigger.

[@ThisisDD]

Zwuh-cruck was how mine sounded 🤷🏼‍♀️

[@roberine7241]

can't beat the simplicity of a light sensor in a piece of plastic with a button

[@nickwallette6201]

They put a big old steel slug in the handle, too, just to give it a sense of heft. Someone obviously cared when they designed that thing.

[@MrAnimefan7]

This continues to be magic. How they figured out they could do this is unfathomable.

[@Doktor_Vem]

Them Nintendo people are pretty damn clever, ain't they

[@ColdPotato]

We put a man on the moon before iPhones.

[@joergojschaefer3521]

@@ColdPotato Absolute nerd knowledge: An single iPhone 6 could control around 120 million Apollo space flights at the same time!

[@timvangenechten5258]

The tech was not new and inferior to other systems. With the system Nintendo used it was nearly impossible to detect many objects at the same time. They would have to induce an epileptic shock by flashing the screen over and over to achieve that. Try playing operation wolf with the zapper and you'll know what I mean.@@Doktor_Vem

[@DeanQuinn-ep2lt]

​@@joergojschaefer3521Jesus. I never knew the "at the same time" part to that fact

[@colinmacvicar2507]

One thing people (my friends at least) didn’t notice in Duck Hunt was that while in two player mode, you could control the duck’s movement with the controller while the other player was playing. My friends would get frustrated that there ducks would move a lot more then mine would and I’d tell them they’re imagining it.

[@fllthdcrb]

Really? I'm pretty sure I always knew that back when I played. Maybe that's the difference between people who are willing to tinker with things and those who aren't.

[@meanmutton]

@@fllthdcrb I would say it is more the difference between those who read the manual and those who don't.

[@fllthdcrb]

@@meanmutton That, too. I loved to read the instructions, but I'm not sure whether I did in this case. It's also possible the person I was playing with told me, since it was their NES and copy of the game. But it was so many years ago, and I was pretty young, there are a lot of details I've forgotten.

[@rongill1234]

@@meanmutton when i had this game i wasn't even in kindergarten yet and def couldn't read anything but i fig it out because just cause when you are waiting on your turn and you see a controller not doing anything you just decide to mess with stuff

[@jakefriesenjake]

I remember playing a really old, long racing game on the atari. My cousins came over and they tried it out. They didn't have a system. They would play and play and complained that their hands were hurting and needed a break. I said tuff. They died early and handed me the controller.... I played until my hands were killing me, and told them to pause the game (button on the console!) I won the first round.

[@tmaris]

I remember being very young playing this game and not understanding how it worked felt like magic. Great explanation Gav!

[@TheGman0808]

Same. I’d try puttin the gun directly on the screen then bring it back and different angles. I loved it😂

[@joedirt5720]

This is something i didn't know i needed!!! As a 80s baby this is EVERYTHING 😮

[@arfdinglare]

Geez that robocam shot midway through was so butter smooth I thought it was a 3D render. I always love seeing how y'all make usage of that.

[@mitchib1440]

lol i probably would've been fooled as well had i not immediately seen the tape holding it down lol only the highest of budgets on Slow Mo Guys!

[@TheLastArbiter]

So creative… I love how when a technology is less developed, creators are forced to use ingenuity and you get so many interesting things instead of twelve versions of the same thing

[@jerotoro2021]

So true. I just wish Nintendo would stop deliberately creating such a scenario 🤨

[@S.M.HassanShah]

Oh I was looking for this. It's mostly sad to look where the world is going now as compared to older times.

[@jckatz]

Keep in mind all that was done in Bytes 56 copies of duck hunt would fit on 1.44 floppy 💾 North America (NTSC): 26,214 bytes Europe (PAL): 32,768 bytes Japan (Famicom): 32,000 bytes

[@theneonbop]

Yeah, you don't get as much cool and clever mechanical stuff anymore, people will just use microcontrollers, sensors, and motors. Of course there is a lot of ingenuity that went into designing those, but it isn't as visible or as fun, and means that not much ingenuity has to go into the projects that use them.

[@theneonbop]

@@jckatz Someone recently fit snake game into 64 bytes in assembly.

[@zakwest9063]

I can't thank you enough. I've been ruminating about this mystery for 30+ years. Good show, mate!

[@galfisk]

Anything that has alternating current and a gas discharge looks neat in slowmo. Neon lamps, neon signs (those with actual neon and clear glass), low pressure sodium bulbs, AC welding, Jacob's ladders, and more.

[@Dorgpoop]

That's a good one

[@CorporateZombi]

I wonder what the start up of a plasma globe would look like. Or what it would look like when you touch a single part of the globe.

[@Silent_Sounds]

This is my favorite video you guys have done in a while. So fascinating

[@dog_solitude]

Always wondered how that worked. Me and a mate spent a lazy childhood Sunday testing it to its limit by lining up mirrors around his house to see how far away we could still hit ducks. I recall it working from the corridor outside his room with two mirrors between us and the TV. Fun times 😂

[@PoshDinosaur702]

The reason it shows two white boxes on separate frames is so that it can tell which duck you shot at, because whether it sees the first or second frame determines which duck it was

[@daleryanaldover6545]

This strengthens the concept where the gun is the receiver of input and not the screen nor the software in the game, if the game software is the one that checks for hit, it could probably just get the coordinates of the box on the screen but that would require a lot of memory for computation. Alternating between two white boxes, th3 game can check for hits without knowing the coordinates because the game can simply infer the white boxes as duck 1 and duck 2. Very clever piece of technology! I could have worded this better but the idea is there.

[@BaltiSean]

When you said “40 years ago” I realized how old I was. Amazing it’s been that long. My first console was the Atari 2600.

[@Spicygoats]

I was born during the gamecube era, but my bro still had the older consoles lying around. Duck Hunt was probably one of my favorites because of the gimmick. The click sound of the gun's trigger along with the flash of the screen was so satisfying and I felt so cool. I knew the flash of the screen had something to do with how it functioned, but I never looked into it. Cool to finally know. I wish my bro hadn't sold those old consoles and games, but he's all about emulation now. Personally, nothing beats the tactile and auditory feedback from slotting in a cartridge and playing on original controllers. I still remember how the plastic of the controller felt in my hands, pushing the d-pad around and the concave buttons in. Playing with the tray that kept the cartridge in place. The clicks of said tray and the power buttons... yeah, I'm gonna buy em all back if I ever get the money saved up.

[@jong2359]

This video is absolutely insane. The sheer depth of perspective you can provide on CRT TV's and the NES Zapper by just simply showing us what our eyes can't.

[@TheRealSkeletor]

Your eyes can, it's our brains which are much more limited.

[@NotHereForLikes]

@@TheRealSkeletorI mean, OPs brain probably but a couple of outstanding humans like us?! No shot! ;)

[@Starfloofle]

These videos really make me appreciate the utter marvel that is old technology. It's one thing what we have now, understanding that it's built on these foundations we laid so many years ago, but seeing the older stuff makes you understand just what phenomenal feats of engineering must have gone into making these ubiquitous things like electronic displays possible in the first place.

[@remlapgarage]

More of these types of slow mo videos, please, these are so damn fascinating

[@willp2906]

One interesting application of light gun technology I've heard of was a device used by the US Air Force and NORAD in the 1950s, where it was used in some form of air traffic control system (I'm unfamiliar with the specifics of how it worked though)

[@BodomFox]

Gav, you just have lifted one of the heaviest loads off my shoulders. I've been wondering about how this thing worked for almost my entire life.

[@themightyspudmurphy8]

Yes I've been wondering how that works my whole life and now I no!

[@peterwhitey4992]

You could have googled it.

[@CapStar362]

Smarter Everyday also covered this topic

[@penguin44ca]

Really? It's not hard to figure out

[@jaymac1022]

Same I actually wondered again the other day. Not enough to google it but a very convenient video to click on

[@BleuSquid]

I was a Sega kid, never had a Nintendo. The Sega Master System also had a gun which was only released in the West, called the Light Phaser. I'd always assumed it worked similar to the Nintendo version, but it appears not! I just found a reference that describes Sega's method. In short, it does math because it knows exactly what part of the screen is being drawn at any given time. This allowed the Light Phaser to have a higher accuracy than its Nintendo counterpart, although it was thrown off by some later CRTs that had unusual geometries (I found several users reporting issues with the Sony flat-screen Trinitrons, where the gun was consistently shooting to the right). To summarise what I've just read: When the trigger is pressed, the next frame will be a solid bright color (in Sega's version of Duck Hunt, "Safari Hunt", I believe the entire screen was painted the color of the sky for that one frame). When the scanline reaches the point visible to the gun, the hardware locks in the horizontal position (software would be too slow), and the software reads this value and together with the current scanline, it can determine an x,y coordinate, which allows the system to effectively map out a rough semi-circle of the view of the gun, and thus compute where the center of the circle would be. (I'll link my references in the next comment, since I expect they'll be held for moderation as links in comments often are)

[@duncanloviscky2329]

0:27 I was born early 2000s, and it makes me so happy that I STILL got to grow up on a Super Nintendo like you (a purple one lol) because my mom found one with a shoebox full of game cartridges at a garage sale!

[@benmonroe_the_1]

I’m 40-yrs-old. This was my first gaming console & DH + SMB1 we’re my first games. You casually tossing in that, “40 yrs ago” line at the end… 😂😂😂 man it made me feel old. 5:12

[@kjyost]

Yup. I was about to say quit saying 40 years ago, that makes me feel old. That at least was the good peripheral. One of cousins had the ROB. What a waste. So slow. Needed gyros.

[@Youtubeforcedmetochangemyname]

My first and only gaming console was the Atari 2600

[@ZeroSuitSamo]

Very cool! The white box has been known by most gaming nerds for a while, but I never knew about the blank frame first. This actually explains the behavior some friends and I saw at a LAN party once. Someone brought an NES with Duck Hunt, and we all knew the gun was just looking for a white box. So I got out my iPod Touch and used the flashlight app (which was just a white screen and max brightness) and we just pulled the trigger looking at that. But it only worked once, and we didn't know why. I guess that one successful hit was just luck or a fluke.

[@Pauly421]

You just answered a question I've been pondering since I was like 5! "How does it know where you're pointing???" Its so simple now that I understand... THE GUN ISNT PROJECTING ANY KIND OF MAGIC BEAM IT IS THE SENSOR! That's genius! 🤯🤯🤯Thank you Gav!

[@GODDAMNLETMEJOIN]

The way I heard it explained the first time was that actually the TV shoots the gun.

[@Cindyo77]

I thought it was some magical beam from the tv too. So mysterious

[@suhail802]

Same here Paully421. I never thought I would get the answer 30 years later in slow motion.

[@Erkle64]

I remember reading something about later similar products detecting when the beam crossed the point it's looking at and using the timing to determine the hit pixel. That's why they required you to shoot the corners and center of the screen to calibrate them and the Zapper didn't. It also meant they didn't need to flash the screen.

[@peterwhitey4992]

Can't believe none of you ever googled it.

[@rashira9610]

I already knew how the Zapper worked before hand, but seeing it in slow motion was definitely pretty neat!

[@kevintyrrell7409]

@rashia9610 How does it know which duck you shot at in 2 duck mode? The lens sees white, but there are two white squares. There's no way for it to know which of the two you were pointing at.

[@GODDAMNLETMEJOIN]

He explained in the video, each duck gets its own frame.

[@babbiification]

I knew it was a light detection device rather than a light emitter, but I would never have imagined that the technology was this integrated, displaying the frame of the square because you pressed the trigger. The engineering of analog input solutions always seems crazy to me.

[@RAHelllord]

@@kevintyrrell7409 You'll notice that the two targets get their own frame, that's how the game determines which duck is being hit because only one of the two will be "seen" at once. If the gun doesn't see a white square during the first frame it knows the first target wasn't hit, and if the gun doesn't see a white square during the second frame it knows the second one wasn't hit either. If instead it sees one of the two target it can determine which one was hit based on the frame. In other games with more potential targets it's the same thing, the screen will show as many frames with a single square as there are targets on the screen. In some games that means up to 7 flashes every time the trigger is pulled.

[@stufflistings]

Wow. Such an incredible video. Have spent countless hours playing this game with my parents and family members. Back then, we used to be super amazed at the "tech" Nintendo pulled off. Your video made me feel real old and nostalgic at the same time ❤

[@Pi7on]

Til. I love how "old" technology was so simple and practical, and yet perfectly functional.

[@Inertia888]

With all the power that we have now, I can only imagine, what sort of amazing things could be, if we were developing with such clever efficiency, as they were in the past…

[@jimbothesailor4217]

I wondered about this for 30 years. Genuinely... This came up in my brain about once a month!

[@I.Lostalim]

As an Australian, I appreciate you having the more pleasing PAL version consoles there as opposed to those American bricks. Even our cartridges were a nicer shape 😆 My mate had Duck Hunt and that orange version of the Zapper. Decades later as an adult I had theories about how it worked, cool to actually see it in action.

[@DannyGraves1775]

Since you have SNES there already Gav... the Super Scope was a more complicated system, while using similar(ish) functionality; maybe do a high speed breakdown of that?

[@Pauly421]

Is that some kind of sniper version? xD

[@DannyGraves1775]

@@Pauly421 Nope, just the (wireless) lightgun for the SNES. Or perhaps I should say light Canon, because honestly, it looks more like some kind of grenade/rocket launcher.

[@Nicola_Bailey]

Yes my brother and I had the Super Scope, and as you say it looked like a rocket launcher. I've never seen the smaller zapper gun.

[@Shoopity]

Definitely worth a slow-mo. I believe it worked by actually knowing exactly where the CRT beam was at the time the trigger was pushed.

[@ouch1011]

I really like these “how it works” style of video. There is so much technology that we take for granted that do amazing things in the blink of an eye

[@jeff92k7]

I had one of these original NES systems with the orange zapper as a kid. I loved that game. I remember learning how the zapper worked a long time ago. My memory isn't what it used to be, but I'm fairly certain that I learned about the zapper "seeing" the white box to register the "duck" even as a kid. I remember pointing the zapper at light bulbs and things trying to trick it but, of course, we never could. Now I finally understand the rest of the story. It was that magic black frame followed by the frame with the white box that made it register the "hit". Absolutely fascinating. The Nintendo engineers truly were geniuses. It's also incredibly interesting that after the "hit" the duck was missing for two frames before being redrawn as a hit. It all happens so fast and we never saw that. Yet in the perspective of modern gaming, we have people complaining that 60fps is "too slow" to play their games. sigh.

[@Dschonathan]

I always knew that CRTs draw their frames line by line but i always thought they glow for longer, like in a way that half or 2/3 of the screen is illuminated at a time. It's crazy to realize a running CRT is 99% black at all times

[@Dash323MJ]

The slow motion might be deceiving, because when filming in slow motion, the camera picks up way less light, meaning that although the slow motion camera can't see the line that was drawn 50 lines ago, your eyes might still be able to see it.

[@noop9k]

It depends on the phosphor. Monochrome PC monitors would have a much longer persistence, but for a regular TVs it's just about right and it actually helps to make motion smooth, unlike how LCDs blur any movement.

[@nickwallette6201]

@@noop9k Yep - it really IS dependent on the phosphor. I always thought that some TVs flickered more back then, and years later I realized that was actually the case. It was a compromise between eye strain and detail, particularly temporal detail. You could have a TV that flickered less, but smeared movement more; or a TV with super clean motion, but more flicker.

[@ticklemetango]

I'm always impressed by the process of collecting the footage and the editing too but this one takes the cake! Cheers for continually fascinating shots AND editing!!!🖤🖤

[@kainvs]

If you aim right at the center of the TV, the duck will fall no matter what position it is in... I really liked that game, they gave it to me 33 years ago

[@tdiman46]

this is the first time i've clicked on a video with gavin in it in years, and i just gotta say that i love that he hasn't changed a bit. still a wonderfully charming content creator. keep it up gav

[@sylance777]

Thanks for the nostalgia! The hours I spent on this game as a kid.

[@GDI-disc-accepted]

Been gaming since 86..started with a C64 then a master system...had every console ever since...i still play the snes and ps1 more than my PS5..miss those days

[@davidalexallen]

My favorite part about this video is how ingrained gun safety is in you -- you kept your finger off the trigger, even of a video game gun!

[@austensperry4163]

This truly is brilliant. I never would have guessed that’s how it worked.

[@MikaelMurstam]

It's also interesting that when you have two ducks, as you said, the white boxes appear on different frames. This must be so that the game can figure out which duck you shot. Pretty cool.

[@RevDrTarr]

I figured out long ago how the Zapper worked, but couldn't figure out how it knew which duck was being aimed at. I could see the screen flash and the white boxes, but not the separate frames.

[@tommymclaughlin-artist]

Thank you for this, I've always wondered how the Zapper works, and you explained it in the most beautiful way possible.

[@capt_bry]

i always wondered how that worked. thank you so much. that really is a genius piece of engineering.

[@suomenpresidentti]

I still have Nintendo 8-bit in excellent condition with accessories. Played duck hunt and Mario Lots with kids on last christmas. It it a gift from 80's that just keeps on giving. 😊

[@CamoGuy76239]

Oh my God! My childhood has been completed! No more mysteries, no more questions, just complete understanding and a newly gained reverence for what seemed to be electronic magic! 🤯

[@mikakettunen7939]

ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING - I was total Duck Hunt maniac back in 80´s and also obsessed about how things work - thank you so much for this slo-mo retrospective! 🤟🤟🤟

[@yashargarrett1789]

I was always wondering about this. I started to think that it was a gimmick and worked randomly without any logic but gave you a feeling of working. Now I get it with your thoroughly illustration.

[@lebronshoecollector2556]

This stuff is so amazing!! I live seeing how things from my childhood worked! Thank you

[@topazboy333]

This is the coolest video you guys have done in years to me. I already knew how the zapper worked but it was still super cool to see in person

[@Jedi_Jed]

I was born in 84 and always wondered how this worked because it seemed so ahead of its time. Thank for this in depth explanation.

[@kriegschwert]

Solid trigger discipline, even with a toy. Respect.

[@kilbabaplays8944]

I've known this for a very long time, but I always wondered how they managed to decide between multiple targets on screen (especially with later lightgun games on NES and other systems, even arcade). I just kind of forgot to go and find out. Nice to have such a clear video and amazing footage showing the scanlines and the black frames etc. Great watch.

[@KenoPotato01]

this was a big question for me back more than 20yrs ago, thanks for giving answers to my curiosity back then!!!!

[@ExiledPalace]

Loving the trigger discipline from Gavin 😂😂

[@JamesQMurphy]

Dan's influence?

[@calinculianu]

@@JamesQMurphy I think more likely that he lives in Austin, Texas and.. most Texans just end up learning to use and end up owning firearms eventually.

[@henrysteven137]

this is so cool, I love these types of slo mo videos

[@yemarican]

This game was ahead of its time. Awesome days. Thank you for sharing this...really interesting.

[@childofnewlight]

I already knew the answer to this. I've already seen probably 3 or 4 videos on this. This one was still totally fascinating. Especially when you slowed it WAAAAAAAAY down. Thank you for doing this. Super interesting.

[@jafethvanelten7898]

Can I just say I really, really appreciate your trigger discipline, even with a fake gun. I practice trigger discipline on things like NERF guns and electric drills so it's really cool to see someone do that as well.

[@idahomike]

Maybe it's a bit odd, but out of the whole video I was most impressed with that, too. I find myself even using proper trigger discipline with garden spray bottles. It gets a bit excessive, sure, but it's nice to see when someone is following such a fundamental firearm safety principle so effectively.

[@Starfloofle]

Gav and Dan are really surprisingly responsible people despite seeming like a bunch of goons half the time.

[@BoomstickGaming]

Shout-out to that clay shooting bonus mode in Duck Hunt! (clay disc totally should have been the one added to Smash)

[@GODDAMNLETMEJOIN]

Clay pigeon is my favorite projectile in the series

[@TheRealSkeletor]

You actually can shoot the clay discs in Smash Brothers.

[@naveenraja7]

Always wanted to know how that thing worked. And this was the exact video I've been looking for from someone who can accurately explain. Thanks so so much for the video. You guys are awesome.

[@samslyder2752]

This is the first video I have ever seen that explains how the NES Zapper gun works. After using the gun for a while back in the mid 90's, I watched the screen closely and could see the boxes that show up around the ducks when I pulled the trigger. I then looked at the gun closely and saw that it had a lens and what I was sure was a light sensor in it. I postulated that the gun was sensing a special kind of light coming from the square or the square itself. All these years later, I find out that I was close! I just didn't know about the black screen before the square which would explain why the menu screen worked with the gun minus any light colored squares and also why you couldn't shoot the dog for laughing at you when you missed. My TV was sitting on the top of an antique radio that was about 4 feet tall, and one day, I stood back about three or four feet away from the TV and put the back of the Zapper gun up against the middle of my chest. I found that as long as I kept the gun pointed directly at the TV, I normally wouldn't miss any ducks, no matter where they were on the screen. Of course, this wasn't perfect. Some ducks that made it to the edges of the screen got away. Otherwise, it worked well. I think I was at or close to 6 feet tall at that point, just for reference.

[@stevenjordan9497]

Those things had the most satisfying click.

[@CarlScripter]

If you had a second CRT on a channel that wasn't broadcasting (static / snow) and shot at it, it was always a hit.

[@waldevv]

The trigger on the Zapper was so satisfying to press, no other light gun or gun controller I've used in general felt as good. It was so loud and tactile

[@Circenn]

0:47 "It could tell exactly where you had this pointed" I would disagree from personal experience. My brother pointed the gun at my butt, away from the TV set, pressed the trigger and got a hit on the screen. I will forever remember this.

[@ramsoomair]

0:44 if you want tu hear the quote

[@runova00]

@@ramsoomair you must have a brightest ass ever

[@wjhung2]

Wow. I always wondered how that worked. That was fascinating. Thank you!

[@RohitSharma84]

I was always curious about how it worked so when I ran across this video in my YT feed I just had to check it out! It was worth it! That's genius level of engineering with such simple components. Thank you for making this video!

[@RobertoVillegas-vincent404]

The simplicity of light gun tech is something I really miss from the CRT days. There just so much overhead to doing something similar with LCDs these days (though there are some really good mods and kits to get light guns working with modern screens).

[@bastienx8]

The sensor was very simple, but the CRT itself was hundreds of times more complicated than a LCD screen

[@RobertoVillegas-vincent404]

@@bastienx8 for sure. When I say overhead, I do mean more on the controller side in terms of seeing where you’re pointing and what you’re aiming at.

[@bastienx8]

@@RobertoVillegas-vincent404 Yes the Zapper was well thought out for a simple light gun. I have never used one but I guess that modern controllers are more accurate, and easier to use if you don't have the ideal conditions

[@scythelord]

@@bastienx8 Uhh that's not at all true. LCDs are way more complex creations than any CRT. A CRT is nothing more than a few electron beams steered by a couple electro magnets striking colored phosphors. It doesn't have tons of microscopic wiring for individual pixels that have to be perfect. The complexity of a CRT is entirely in the high voltage transformers and that's pretty much it. CRTs are dead simple devices, which is why they're incredibly fast.

[@bastienx8]

@@scythelord It depends on what you mean by "complex". A LCD screen has indeed a lot of small wiring but it's just repetitive, the overall circuit diagram is quite simple. On a CRT there are a lot of different components needed to create and conduct the electron beams to the correct positions with the correct colors

[@T00LF00L]

Wow I always wondered how it knew which duck you shot in two duck mode, I didn’t know the two white squares were drawn in different frames! 👏🏻

[@andrewhonn]

Almost 40 and still have my sns... my kids play with it too which is awesome to show them old game's

[@GunslingerAlGilead]

My family couldn’t afford it when I was a kid and I saw this first when invited to someone’s house. Blew my mind straightaway. It was good growing up in 90s though tough times in an ex-USSR country for adults. Appreciate it, mom, dad and grandma!

[@gillesbisson199]

Would really love to see the droplets from an inkjet printer !!

[@frankierzucekjr]

I always wondered about this. Absolutely brilliant, thank you for showing us. Im 38 btw and this was one of my favorite games. I remember my Italian grandfather would get mad when he missed the duck and the dog laughed lol.

[@Albatross0913]

Man, I love seeing you practice trigger discipline with something as simple as a zapper. Great video

[@Lego-Joe-1]

I love these more simple educational videos keep it up Gav and Dan.

[@NotHereForLikes]

Bot lol Dan wasn’t even in this video

[@raphaelgarcia7365]

What I find even more amazing, is that you were able to get a hold of a Zapper that actually functions properly

[@ln108]

I've got one. As I remember I got it at a garage sale pretty dirt cheap.

[@_neovek]

I have one. But I can't use it because I don't have a CRT anymore...

[@Mr-Blitz]

GAVIN!! Please talk about the Wii sensors and the Wii-mote being the camera. Years and years ago I saw a TED talk where a guy reversed the setup and was able to emulate 3D tracking of the gun/camera in real time. Very cool and simple setup

[@Jay-uw4bu]

The fact that you could use candles in if you didn’t have a wii sensor bar was interesting

[@vcprado]

It would be interesting to see what happens in this setup with a LCD TV

[@paultuck]

I grew up with a NES and then the SNES. Best video game consoles ever. I always wondered how the Zapper worked, thanks for letting us know.

[@Vinexio]

I didn't know there would be something to see in slow mo :o

[@MicrowavedFurby]

Thank you for the tinnitus simulation.

[@andywest5773]

Don't worry. Pretty soon you'll be old and you won't be able to hear it, but you'll wish you could.

[@SuperM789]

@@andywest5773 tom scott reference

[@JoLiKMC]

Hello, Gavin. It's been a very long time since I've watched anything you've been in. Glad you're still doing these. This video was recommended to me by _KZbin,_ and I'm quite happy that it was. I've never poked around with _Duck Hunt_ via emulation before, so I never really knew how this worked. This was very interesting to watch!

[@DjDayOne]

Light guns are so cool. I had a lot of fun playing some arcade type game about shooting ninjas in my younger years.