Throwback Thursday: NES Zapper

By on Aug 5, 2010 at 5:30 PM
General August 5, 2010

Ah yes, the NES Zapper. Your weapon of choice for eradicating ducks, clay discs, criminals, cowboys, and just boring old targets.

The NES Zapper made is North American debut in October of 1985 when it was bundled with the Nintendo Entertainment System and a now infamous game, Duck Hunt. The technology behind the Zapper is painfully simple, although I remember it feeling like science fiction in 1985. When the trigger of the Zapper was pulled it would cause the entire screen of the game being played to go black for one frame. The subsequent frame would have your games target (ducks, clay discs, whatever) appear in all white. The gun would detect this change from dark to light and determine if you’ve hit your target. If multiple targets are on the screen more than one “white” frame is used to determine which target has been hit. The process is mostly invisible to the eye, although, as most people remember, you can see the screen flash when the trigger is pulled (which was cool, because you were shooting a fake gun!). The Zapper truly was a milestone in gaming, but fess up… how many of you pinched off a couple of rounds at the Duck Hunt dog to blow off some steam?

BGR Throwback Thursday is a weekly series covering our (and your) favorite gadgets, games, and software of yesterday and yesteryear

Tags:
, , ,
37 Comments

Related Articles

  • fujitsujeff

    Throwback Thursday! Clay Shooter and Duck Hunt! I wish you could shoot the dog for always snickering when you missed :-) …

    • clticchrys

      In the arcade stand-alone Duck Hunt machine, you indeed could shoot the dog, and when next he appeared it would be with bandages. I was quite disappointed when I got my own NES to find that feature had been removed from the home version.

  • liftedngifted1

    Man I loved this game, but I always hated that Dog, I wish we could shoot him instead of the ducks…

    • StevenHamburg

      I tried and tried to kill that dog. It would’ve been awesome if Nintendo figured a way to store all the shots fired at the dog and then make it publicly available.

      I still have a NES and Duck Hunt…and the zapper. Surprisingly easy now! Did you know that player 2 can control the ducks??

      • SupAll

        How is your NES still work? ^.-

      • dkall2

        Both of mine still work.

      • clticchrys

        Mine still works.

      • Terry

        Yeah it was great. I would always mess with my brother and move the ducks all over the place.

  • Topher86

    I remember ramming that thing trough the tv screen playing Duck Hunt….

  • skyy_flyer

    I am loving this Throwback Thursday segment!

  • Jarrett

    This is funny, a few weeks ago my Father-in-law got this PC game (Deer hunting of some sort). There is a part where you shoot ducks and there is this dog that chases them out for you. All I could think about was Duck Hunt. Same problem arose though, you can’t shoot the damn dog.
    I agree with this TBT thing, it’s great.

    Would love to have someone post video of KABOOM!! action from the 2600 days.

  • jmts80

    NES Zapper FTW!

  • QuickWeevil

    I fuckin hated that damn dog… How dare you laugh at me when I miss!

  • WalterSobchak

    Between this and the trackpad, I remained relatively unimpressed with the interactivity of game consoles up until the wii.

    • WalterSobchak

      I meant I loved this and the trackpad, I wasn’t trashing it. Having this in 91 spoiled me.

  • dad

    Damn BGR! You guys always bring back the good memories!

  • dad

    Also, I did shoot the at the dog every time his ass laughed at me. *ucking Bastard!

  • http://techteennewsat.blogspot.com Cody H

    Go to my site, Droid 2 launching next week supposedly

  • eander315

    We would aim the Zapper at a lamp and pull the trigger every time a duck come on screen. Couldn’t miss!

  • YouFail

    My iPhone 4 has better games! this is wack!!!

    • alexman98

      Your name describes you so wisely…

  • Jeff T

    OMG I found my NES system when I was cleaning out my basement this summer. Set it up and played duck hunt all over again. The teenagers love it!

  • rainai

    Haha! I loved that game, too. But I really hated that dog.

  • Dave

    There didnt make NEARLY enough games for the Zapper. You had Duck Hunt and that Hogan’s Alley and thats about it really. NES had cool accessories like the Power Pad, Zapper, and Power Glove, but no good games for any of them.

    • DJ Megatron

      Don’t forget about Wild Gunman. I found an app for it on iTunes. Been playing it and it’s true to form. Brought back many good memories of being at an arcade and playing these games. Hogan’s Alley was another favorite game of mine growing up.

  • Killah Kyle

    My parents didn’t even know each other in 1985

  • Doll

    I remember duck hunt. I was really little so my older brother would never let me play much. But boy did that game seem cool lol

  • Residence

    I remain relatively unimpressed with your douchbag beard, and choice of eyeware.

  • http://www.christopheradams.com/blog Christopher Adams

    Love that you talked about the tech behind the zapper. I remember those days of duck hunt and …? Wait what other games besides duck hunt :) Like the other commenter said, there wasn’t many zapper games, But duck hunt was fun and the zapper really was ahead of its time.

    • DJ Megatron

      There used to be a game called Chiller. Can’t remember the name of the company who made it, but I used to have it. It ended up getting banned because of the fact you shot up bodies in a dungeon. There were people tied to torture racks, that when you shot them body parts blew up.

  • Ed

    I remember getting mad at the little neighbor kid that would stand right at the screen and shoot the ducks point blank!

  • CatatonicBug

    My NES came with Duck Hunt and Gyromite, so I never really became a Mario fan. However, with the system we had, Duck Hunt had the gun, and Gyromite had the robot! That robot was cooler than the gun IMO!

    • tk-093

      Gyromite! That should be next weeks throwback thursday!!

    • DJ Megatron

      Oh yeah I almost forgot about ROB, the Robot Operated Buddy.

  • Gilbert

    Good times :-)

  • DaNeener

    Go to YouTube and search “College Humor Duck Hunt”. Watch the Behind the Scenes of Duck Hunt…they’re conspiring against us!

  • Евгений

    А для чего эта штука? =)

blog comments powered by Disqus