Using an original Zapper lightgun with FCE Ultra GX

Hey guys, I was hoping you could help. I have a CRT TV that my NES and Wii are hooked up to. I play all my old NES zapper games on the TV and they work great.

I was hoping to plug the Zapper into the Gamecube port of my Wii (using an adapter) and play some of the rarer NES zapper roms on FCE Ultra GX. I own this adapter and I couldn't get it to work:

[www.amazon.com]

I tried setting the Gamecube port the Zapper was plugged in to controller 1 and 2, but nothing would happen on either one. Also, the screen would not flash when I pulled the trigger, like with my original NES. For the record, I tested the adapter with an original NES controller and that seems to work fine.

I've also found the following adapters, but do not own them:

[www.retrousb.com]

[www.mayflash.com]

Has anyone else tried to do this? Should I just try one of the other adapters? I'd really appreciate some help.

Thanks!

those adapters are only for normal gamepads, what they do is converting NES gamepad button signals to associated Gamecube controller buttons
they were not designed to work with other NES device, none of them
i don't know exactly how the zapper worked but it is more complex hardware than a simple gamepad, if only how the TV pixel beam detection is reported through the controller ports

Yes, the Zapper used two pins that the NES controllers did not. When those pins are accessed, it tells the NES to flash the screen. I think I found a pinout of both the NES controller and the Zapper:

NES Controller
1. Brown Wire = GND
2. Red Wire = Clock
3. Orange Wire = Latch
4. Yellow Wire = Data
5. Whire Wire = VCC +5V
6. NC Blank = Open No Conductor
7. NC Blank = Open No Conductor

NES Zapper
1. Brown Wire = GND
2. NC Blank = Open No Conductor
3. NC Blank = Open No Conductor
4. NC Blank = Open No Conductor
5. White Wire = VCC +5V
6. Blue Wire = Zapper
7. Purple Wire = Zapper

I'll see if I can find info on any of those adapters to see if all pins are transferred to the Wii (or Gamecube).

None of those pins are transferred directly through the gamecube connectors.
Again, what those adaptors are doing is converting nes buttons reports into gamecube buttons reports: basically, they read the status of nes buttons using the (relatively simpler) 2- or 3- wire protocol that the nes gamepads use then communicate the status of associated gamecube buttons to the gamecube/wii software, using gamecube specific protocol.

Even if those two pins used by the zapper (most likely, trigger and TV beam detection reports) were wired to the adapter, the information is lost and never goes out.
You could not even rewire the adapter to use those pins instead of the gamepad pins because the protocol used is probably completely different and the adapter would not understand it as button reports.

Really, the only solution would be to build a custom adapter and have custom software that could use it, which would be quite difficult when it comes to figure the pixel beam screen position: gamecube/wii software has a mean to read the current beam H and V position but it would need to be read by the emulator as soon as the zapper (and your custom adapter) reports pixel beam detection, which is, in my opinion, impossible to achieve with enough precision because of the natural latency that comes with emulators...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/2012 11:07PM by ekeeke.

Quote
ekeeke
Really, the only solution would be to build a custom adapter and have custom software that could use it, which would be quite difficult when it comes to figure the pixel beam screen position: gamecube/wii software has a mean to read the current beam H and V position but it would need to be read by the emulator as soon as the zapper (and your custom adapter) reports pixel beam detection, which is, in my opinion, impossible to achieve with enough precision because of the natural latency that comes with emulators...

I didn't think about that. The latency of the emulator, combined with the latency of the Zapper to Wii adapter would definitely be an issue.

Thanks for your replies. I wish there was a way to make this happen, but it doesn't look possible.

Sure there is. Duct tape a wiimote to the top/side of the zapper :P