C64 Lightguns

General info:

For those who are interested in some general technical details about lightguns on the C64 info_Lightguns.htm

Why/how/when:

What is more magic than pointing something (as simple as a single photodiode with some transistors and a lense) at your CRT screen, pushing a button and then immediately see something happen at the location you physically pointed at. As a kid I found that magical and even now, now that I know how it works, it still has that magic touch. But it took a while before I realized that why the lightgun that I owned as a kid didn't always worked the way I expected it, to be more precise, some games just wouldn't work with it at all. Which as a kid, seemed very strange to me, after all, a lightgun is a lightgun and there is only one lightgun/pen input pin on the entire C64, so why doesn't it work?
Then, when I was significantly older, I noticed the website of Nicholas Coplin (http://www.64hdd.com/projects/c64-proj3.html#lightgun) that has a small item about lightguns and then it hit me... "wait a minute my gun is using the wrong games or it is working but using the wrong trigger connections". So that started me to search for all the games and information I could find, experimented a bit and now I know that there are many kind of lightguns available for the C64. Fortunately they all can be divided into 3 simple categories. This because there basically 3 different types of electrical connections used (trigger and sensor signal). Which gun is compatible with which game and how it should be connected is described in the list of games table below.
Despite the magical effect this technology has on me, I often wondered why there aren't thatmuch games for the C64 in general. After all, the C64 game library is used but only a handfull of games is to be used in combination with a lightgun. For some reason the C64 lightgun game industry for never came of the ground. But I have to be honest, most games are simply not good enough and could be considered "boring" or repetetive. It is a certain "type" of gameplay that makes it difficult to develop a game that is truly fun and original. But this doesn't mean that all lightgun games are boring. Operation wolf for instance is the perfect example of how an arcade game could be brought into your home.
Now although the lightgun is intended to be used in combination with a CRT, if you happen to use an emulator this does not apply. VICE for instance does offer Lightgun/pen support in the form of a simple setting that makes your mousepointer behave like it is a lightgun/pen. By default this function is disabled since joysticks are considered to be the default input option. To enable this go to the settings menu and choose "lightpen" settings, however, since there are many version of VICE the exact layout may differ on your version. However no matter what version you have, you are able to play lightgun/pen games or programs by just using your mouse.
Unfortunately VICE only supports 2 types of lightguns, the "Stack light rifle" and the "Magnum light phaser". The gun that is not supported is the "Gun stick", which is a pitty because the "Gun stick" games are very nice looking and playable games (although not many C64 games exist for it). This is because the "Gun stick" doesn't behave like a regular C64 lightgun since it doesn't use the lightgun/pen input pin on the joystick port for detecting the position you are aiming at. But instead behaves more like the famous a Nintendo zapper.