Just because your old Nintendo Entertainment System is alive and well doesn’t mean it can play nice with modern technology. Today we explore why the classic light gun accessory for the NES didn’t make the jump to the 21st century.

仅仅因为您的旧Nintendo Entertainment System仍然有效而且并不意味着它可以与现代技术完美融合。 今天，我们探讨为什么NES的经典光枪配件没有跳入21世纪。

Dear How-To Geek,

亲爱的How-To Geek，

This probably isn’t going to be the most serious question you get today, but I am looking for a serious geeky answer: why the heck won’t my Nintendo zapper work on my HDTV? I pulled my old NES out of storage to play some classics and decided to start with the very first cartridge, the combo Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt one. Super Mario Bros. works fine (although man do the graphics look blocky and strange on a big HDTV) but Duck Hunt doesn’t work at all. The game loads, you can start it, but you can’t shoot any ducks. Not a single one.

这可能不是您今天遇到的最严重的问题，但是我正在寻找一个严肃的怪异答案：为什么我的Nintendo zapper无法在我的HDTV上正常工作？ 我将旧的NES从存储中取出来播放一些经典歌曲，并决定从第一个墨盒，即Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt组合墨盒开始。 超级马里奥兄弟(Super Mario Bros.)正常工作(尽管在大型高清电视上，图形看起来像块状且很奇怪)，但Duck Hunt却根本无法工作。 游戏加载后，您可以启动它，但不能射击任何鸭子。 没有一个。

I was convinced the zapper was broken but then I plugged the NES and zapper into an old 1990s-era tube television out in my garage and, behold, the zapper works! From my little test I know enough to say that the issue seems to be a CRT vs. HDTV issue, but I have no idea why. What’s the story? Why won’t the zapper work on newer TVs?

我确信拉链器坏了，但是后来我将NES和拉链器插入了我车库中的一台1990年代旧式电子管电视中，然后，拉链器开始工作了！ 通过我的小测试，我足够知道该问题似乎是CRT与HDTV的问题，但我不知道为什么。 来龙去脉是什么？ 为什么zapper无法在较新的电视上工作？

Sincerely,

真诚的

Retro Gaming

复古游戏

While we have fun answering just about every question that comes across our desk (you don’t end up at How-To Geek if you don’t love how stuff works, after all), we really love questions like this: geeky inquiry for the sake of geeky inquiry.

尽管我们很乐于回答办公桌上遇到的每个问题(毕竟，如果您不喜欢东西的工作原理，您不会最终成为How-To Geek的人)，但我们真的很喜欢这样的问题：为了怪异的查询。

First, let’s reframe the question slightly so we’re using more precise terms. The issue you’ve uncovered isn’t about the difference between CRT and HDTVs (because there were, in the early days, consumer HDTVs built around CRT technology). It isn’t about resolution, it’s about how the display is rendered. To frame it more accurately would be to say that it’s about the difference between CRT/analog video and LCD/digital video.

首先，让我们对问题进行稍微的重新构架，以便使用更精确的术语。 您发现的问题与CRT和HDTV之间的差异无关(因为在早期，存在基于CRT技术构建的消费类HDTV)。 这与分辨率无关，而与显示的呈现方式有关。 要更准确地进行构图，就是说这与CRT /模拟视频和LCD /数字视频之间的差异有关。

Before we look at the core of the issue, however, let’s look at how the Zapper functions and interacts with the NES and television. A lot of people, and certainly most of the kids that played the NES back in the day, were under the impression that the Zapper actually shot something towards the television, much like a TV remote sending a signal to a television set. The Zapper does nothing of the sort (and what, exactly, on the television would be able to receive the signal and send it to the NES?). The only connection between the Zapper and the NES is the cord, and for good reason. The Zapper isn’t as much a gun as it is a sensor, a very simple light sensor. The Zapper doesn’t shoot anything, it detects patterns of light on the screen in front of it. This was true of all light-gun accessories for all video game systems of the era (and preceding it). They were all just simple light sensors housed in deceptively gun-like cases.

但是，在我们看问题的核心之前，让我们看一下Zapper如何运作以及如何与NES和电视互动。 很多人，当然还有大多数当天玩过NES的孩子，给人的印象是Zapper实际上是向电视机拍摄了一些东西，就像电视遥控器向电视机发送信号一样。 Zapper不会做任何事情(电视上究竟能接收什么信号并将其发送到NES？)。 Zapper和NES之间的唯一连接是电缆，这是有充分理由的。 Zapper并不是枪，而是传感器，它是一个非常简单的光传感器。 Zapper不会拍摄任何东西，它会检测屏幕前面的光的图案。 适用于该时代(及其之前)所有视频游戏系统的所有轻型枪配件都是如此。 它们都是装在看似枪支的盒子里的简单光传感器。

Does that mean the Zapper was actively tracking all those ducks on the screen with surgical precision? Hardly. Nintendo designers came up with a very clever way to ensure the simple sensor in the Zapper could keep up. Every time a player pulled the trigger on the Zapper, the screen would (for just a fraction of a second) blink black with a large white targeting box drawn over everything on the screen that was a valid target (such as the ducks). It repeated the process, all within that fraction of a second, for every available target on the screen.

这是否意味着Zapper正在以手术精度积极追踪屏幕上的所有鸭子？ 几乎不。 任天堂的设计师想出了一种非常聪明的方法来确保Zapper中的简单传感器可以跟上。 每当玩家扣动了扳机上Zapper的，屏幕会(只是一个一秒钟的分数 )有一大片白色的定位框闪烁黑色绘制在这是一个有效的目标(如鸭)在屏幕上的一切。 它对屏幕上的每个可用目标都在不到一秒钟的时间内重复了该过程。

While the player saw a screen like this the whole time:

当玩家一直看到这样的屏幕时：

The zapper, during each trigger press, saw something like this:

每次按下触发器时，zapper都会看到以下内容：

In that brief flash, which was invisible the user, the gun would determine if one or more of the targets was centered in the Zapper’s hit zone. If the box was centered enough, it counted as a hit. If the target box was outside of the center zone, it was a miss. It was a very clever way to deal with the limitations of the hardware and provide a fluid user experience.

在短暂的闪光中，使用者看不见它，枪将确定一个或多个目标是否位于Zapper的命中区域中心。 如果框足够居中，则视为命中。 如果目标框不在中心区域内，则表示未命中。 这是解决硬件局限性并提供流畅的用户体验的非常聪明的方法。

Unfortunately, despite being clever, it was very hardware dependent. Much like early PC video game designers used hardware quirks to help build their games (like knowing the clock speed of the platform they were working on was fixed and could be used to time in-game events), Nintendo and other early game companies relied heavily on the quirks of CRT displays and their respective display standards. Specifically, in the case of the Zapper, the mechanism is completely dependent on the characteristics of CRT display.

不幸的是，尽管很聪明，但它还是非常依赖于硬件。 就像早期的PC视频游戏设计师使用硬件怪癖来帮助构建游戏一样(就像知道他们正在使用的平台的时钟速度是固定的，并且可以用来计时游戏内事件)，任天堂和其他早期游戏公司在很大程度上依赖有关CRT显示器及其各自显示标准的怪癖。 具体来说，在Zapper的情况下，该机制完全取决于CRT显示器的特性。

First, it requires extremely precise timing between the trigger pull on the Zapper and the response on the screen. Even the slightest difference (and we’re talking milliseconds here) between the signal sent to the NES and the signal displayed on the screen can throw it off. The original timing sequence was based on the very dependable response time of a CRT hooked up to the analog NES signal. Whether the old tube TV was big, small, cutting edge or 10 years old, the speed of the signal via the CRT display standard was reliable. By contrast, the latency in modern digital sets is not reliable and is not the same as the old consistent delay in the CRT system. Now, this doesn’t matter in most situations. If you have your old VCR hooked up to the coax jack on your new LCD display, it doesn’t matter one bit if the audio and video are delayed by 800 milliseconds because you’d never know (the audio and video would play in sync and you’d have absolutely no way of knowing that the entire process was lagging by a fraction of a second). However, this latency completely destroys communication between the Zapper, the NES, and the events on the screen.

首先，它需要在Zapper上的触发器拉动和屏幕上的响应之间极其精确的计时。 发送到NES的信号与屏幕上显示的信号之间即使是最细微的差别(在这里我们以毫秒为单位)也可能使信号丢失。 原始定时序列基于连接到模拟NES信号的CRT的非常可靠的响应时间。 不论旧的管状电视是大是小，尖端还是10年，通过CRT显示标准传输的信号速度都是可靠的。 相比之下，现代数字设备中的延迟并不可靠，并且与CRT系统中的旧的一致延迟不同。 现在，在大多数情况下这无关紧要。 如果您将旧的VCR连接到新的LCD显示器上的同轴电缆插Kong，则音频和视频延迟800毫秒一点也不重要，因为您永远不会知道(音频和视频将同步播放而且您绝对无法知道整个过程滞后了不到一秒钟。 但是，此延迟完全破坏了Zapper，NES和屏幕上事件之间的通信。

This extremely precise timing was possible (and consistent) because Nintendo designers could count on the refresh rate of the CRT being consistent. CRT displays use an electron gun to activate phosphors in screen hidden behind the display glass. This gun sweeps across the screen from the top to the bottom at a very dependable frequency. Even though it happens faster than the human eye can detect, every single frame of every single video game or television broadcast is displayed as if some hyperactive robot is drawing it line by line from the top to the bottom.

这种非常精确的时序是可能的(并且是一致的)，因为Nintendo设计人员可以指望CRT的刷新率保持一致。 CRT显示器使用电子枪激活隐藏在显示屏玻璃后面的屏幕中的磷光体。 这把枪以非常可靠的频率从顶部到底部扫过屏幕。 即使它发生的速度比人眼无法察觉的速度快，但每个视频游戏或电视广播中的每个帧都会显示出来，就好像某个活动过度的机器人从上到下逐行绘制它一样。

By contrast, modern digital displays make all the changes simultaneously. This isn’t to say that modern televisions don’t have progressive and interlaced video (because they most certainly do), but the lines aren’t rendered one at a time (however quickly). They are displayed all at once in their respective standards. As for why this matters to the Zapper, the software driving the Zapper’s detection algorithm needs that line-by-line refresh to pull off the timing tricks which make it possible to have 5 ducks on the screen and successful hit detection all within 500 milliseconds or so.

相比之下，现代数字显示器可以同时进行所有更改。 这并不是说现代电视没有逐行扫描和隔行扫描的视频(因为它们肯定是这样)，但是这些线并不是一次渲染一次(但是很快)。 它们以各自的标准同时显示。 至于为什么这对Zapper很重要，驱动Zapper检测算法的软件需要逐行刷新以产生定时技巧，从而使屏幕上有5只鸭子并在500毫秒内成功检测到命中或所以。

Without the very specific and hard-coded timing provided by the CRT display, Duck Hunt (or any other Zapper-based game of the era) simply won’t work.

如果没有CRT显示屏提供的非常具体且经过硬编码的计时，Duck Hunt(或该时代其他任何基于Zapper的游戏)将根本无法工作。

While that’s disappointing, we know, there is an upside. The premium tube sets of yesteryear, those high-end Sony sets for example, that cost $$$$ can now be found sitting on curbs during electronic recycling days and gathering dust at the back of second hand shops. If you’re serious about retro gaming, you can pick up a premium standard definition CRT for pennies on the dollar.

我们知道，虽然令人失望，但仍有上行空间。 过去，像是高端索尼电视机这样的高端电子管套装，例如，售价为$$$$$的如今，可以在电子回收日期间坐在路边上，并在二手店的后面收集灰尘。 如果您对复古游戏很认真，则可以花几美分购买优质的标准清晰度CRT。

Have a pressing tech question, big or small? Shoot us an email at ask@howtogeek.com and we’ll do our best to answer it.

有紧迫的技术问题，或大或小的？ 向我们发送电子邮件至ask@howtogeek.com，我们将尽力答复。

翻译自: https://www.howtogeek.com/181303/htg-explains-how-the-nintendo-zapper-worked-and-why-it-doesnt-work-on-new-tvs/