A light gun is a pointing device for computers and a control device for arcade and video games.
Modern screen-based light guns work by building a sensor into the gun itself, and the on-screen target(s) emit light rather than the gun. The first device of this type, the light pen, was used on the MIT Whirlwind computer.
The light gun and its ancestor, the light pen, are now rarely used as pointing devices due largely to the popularity of the mouse and changes in monitor display technology—conventional light guns only work with CRT monitors.
Read more about Light Gun: Early History, Use in Video Games, Design, Positional Guns, Light Gun Models
Famous quotes containing the words light and/or gun:
“As I sat before the fire on my fir-twig seat, without walls above or around me, I remembered how far on every hand that wilderness stretched, before you came to cleared or cultivated fields, and wondered if any bear or moose was watching the light of my fire; for Nature looked sternly upon me on account of the murder of the moose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We got our new rifled muskets this morning. They are mostly old muskets, many of them used, altered from flint-lock to percussion ... but the power of the gun was fully as great as represented. The ball at one-fourth mile passed through the largest rails; at one-half mile almost the same.... I think it an excellent arm.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)