I dismantled one of these as a kid. Ok, technically it was my friend's Commodore 64 light pen, but it worked on the same principle.
To my surprise the only active component in it was a LM741 Opamp, and I was like: "That's what I know!". So I rebuilt one, without understanding much how it functioned. Because I didn't have much money and housings were expensive I built it into a matchbox, whose frontside fits a 9 pin D-sub connector quite nicely. The photodiode lived in a ballpoint pen and both were connected by a homemade coiled cable. It looked sweet and I must still have it somewhere.
The precision was terrible and I couldn't paint with it, but it was no worse than the original. So next time you play one of these old shooting games and you miss a lot, it's maybe not your bad aim even.
To my surprise the only active component in it was a LM741 Opamp, and I was like: "That's what I know!". So I rebuilt one, without understanding much how it functioned. Because I didn't have much money and housings were expensive I built it into a matchbox, whose frontside fits a 9 pin D-sub connector quite nicely. The photodiode lived in a ballpoint pen and both were connected by a homemade coiled cable. It looked sweet and I must still have it somewhere.
The precision was terrible and I couldn't paint with it, but it was no worse than the original. So next time you play one of these old shooting games and you miss a lot, it's maybe not your bad aim even.