Are light pens compatable with digital TV's ?
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Are light pens compatable with digital TV's ?
I admit to having absolutely no understanding of how light pens work. I currently use my Vic 20 hooked up to a digital TV. Am I right in assuming that the pen requires an analogue type TV to work ?
Lightpens do not work with LCD/LED t.v.'s. They do work with picture-tube type (CRT) t.v.'s.
FCUG celebrating 30 years,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
FCUG celebrating 30 years,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
IIRC, lightpens work by detecting where the electron beam of a CRT is. There is a light sensor in the pen which registers the bright dot of the electron beam as it is scanning/drawing the picture on the screen and then the computer can determine where the pen is pointing. This wouldn't work with an LCD or Plasma display as there is no constantly scanning beam to detect.
Light pens
Thanks guys for your replies. Interesting things - I wonder why they never really caught on - I suppose they were superceded by the mouse !
Re: Light pens
Perhaps because of the arm position that you had to have while holding the lightpen. I always thought that could be relieved by mounting the CRT monitor/t.v. under the table so that its screen lay horizontally at the same level as the desktop.crowscamp wrote:...I wonder why they never really caught on...
FCUG celebrating 30 years,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org
Re: Light pens
The term I remember was Gorilla arm - trying to hold your arm up to the screen for anything longer than a few minutes gets really difficult and tires you out quickly. It is why touchscreen interfaces are still not common on desktop computers. Building the monitor/display into the table would alleviate the problem, but that idea never caught on either...RobertBe wrote:Perhaps because of the arm position that you had to have while holding the lightpen. I always thought that could be relieved by mounting the CRT monitor/t.v. under the table so that its screen lay horizontally at the same level as the desktop.crowscamp wrote:...I wonder why they never really caught on...