Shooting Gallery
Encyclopedia
The Shooting Gallery was a rifle
light gun
and is regarded as the first commercial light gun ever created for any video game console
. It was originally created by Ralph Baer, the inventor of the Magnavox Odyssey
, in 1968 as part of a prototype gaming unit. The prototype light gun was used as an interface for playing multiple choice games.
This prototype design was later developed into the Shooting Gallery for the Magnavox Odyssey. The console had a special port built into it for this peripheral
. The Shooting Gallery allowed playing four additional games. This simple shotgun
-inspired light gun would only detect light, and not necessarily what particular target, which thus allowed the player to cheat by shooting any light source, e.g. a light bulb.
Since no scores were displayed on the TV screen for any Odyssey game, cheating was somewhat irrelevant. A rumor circulated that the Shooting Gallery rifle would only work with a Magnavox TV set. Although wrong, this hurt sales and only 20,000 or so were sold.
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
light gun
Light gun
A light gun is a pointing device for computers and a control device for arcade and video games.Modern screen-based light guns work by building a sensor into the gun itself, and the on-screen target emit light rather than the gun...
and is regarded as the first commercial light gun ever created for any video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
. It was originally created by Ralph Baer, the inventor of the Magnavox Odyssey
Magnavox Odyssey
The Magnavox Odyssey is the world's first home video game console. It was first demonstrated on May 24, 1972 and released in August of that year, predating the Atari Pong home consoles by three years....
, in 1968 as part of a prototype gaming unit. The prototype light gun was used as an interface for playing multiple choice games.
This prototype design was later developed into the Shooting Gallery for the Magnavox Odyssey. The console had a special port built into it for this peripheral
Peripheral
A peripheral is a device attached to a host computer, but not part of it, and is more or less dependent on the host. It expands the host's capabilities, but does not form part of the core computer architecture....
. The Shooting Gallery allowed playing four additional games. This simple shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
-inspired light gun would only detect light, and not necessarily what particular target, which thus allowed the player to cheat by shooting any light source, e.g. a light bulb.
Since no scores were displayed on the TV screen for any Odyssey game, cheating was somewhat irrelevant. A rumor circulated that the Shooting Gallery rifle would only work with a Magnavox TV set. Although wrong, this hurt sales and only 20,000 or so were sold.
Games
There were four games made that supported the Shooting Gallery, not a small number of titles relative to the extremely limited total number of games available for the console. The four games were available on two cards (#9 and #10). Note that these games are colorized only by translucent plastic screen overlays.See also
- Magnavox OdysseyMagnavox OdysseyThe Magnavox Odyssey is the world's first home video game console. It was first demonstrated on May 24, 1972 and released in August of that year, predating the Atari Pong home consoles by three years....
- Magnavox Odyssey The online Odyssey museum