Talk:Light pen

"Light Gun" in reference to Whirlwind I

It is stated that the first light pen was also called the "light gun" which, while correct as referenced in Everett 1980, has little to do with the article - light gun - linked, which is the video-game peripheral. Although they could use the same CRT technology (although the article also includes non-examples such as the Wii Remote which is an infrared emitter), from what I can tell, it is not mentioned in any of the sources that this early naming has any relation to the light gun for video games. -- Junferno — Preceding undated comment added 03:55, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Not a laser pointer

A light pen is not the same thing as a laser pointer. -- Zoe

It was a blank entry anyway - I didn't remove or move any text. write it or delete it if I was wrong. I'm trying to clear up some of the stubs - ATM there are fifty entries with a zero character list so any that can be made redirects or removed should be. ~KJ

Date of first use

The first light pen was used around 1957 on the Lincoln TX-0 computer at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. it was first reported to the public in 1969 by Ivan Sutherland.

When merging Lightpen and light pen, one had: The first light pen was used around 1957 on the Lincoln TX-0 computer at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. the other had: it was first used in 1969 by Ivan Sutherland.

Which one is correct. I think:

• Lincoln TX-? (0, 1, or 2)
• Ivan Sutherland
• MIT Lincoln Laboratory

are correct, but i cant find which one it should be, or the date tooto 16:36, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ivan Sutherland

Ivan Sutherland made many contributions to computer graphics but the light pen is not one of them, nor did he "first report it to the public." It was used in the SAGE air defense system (developed by Lincoln Lab) in the 1950's. The IBM 2250 announced in 1964 came with a light pen and that feature was not considered innovative at the time. Also see the article on light gun.

--agr 11:38, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What is this lightpen

a light pen is pointing input device that contains — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.182.35.177 (talk) 06:37, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

"guns" on arcade machines

Would I be correct in thinking that the guns used in certain arcade machines (the sort where you stand and literally shoot at the screen) work on the same principle?

If so, perhaps the article could mention this.

You would be mostly correct, however there is already a link to Light Guns in the article in the See Also section. -Branin

I think the common arcade gun is some distance away from screen, it doesn't really touch it which would be necessary for light pen to detect small brightness differences during CRT scanning. A natural way to implement them would be joystick. 76.119.30.87 (talk) 20:00, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

jilvin (talk) 14:47, 25 September 2018 (UTC): If they use the same principle, shouldn't we mention the date light guns were created? It was before the creation of light pen at MIT.

Vector displays

I seem to recall that the Vectrex had a light pen peripheral. Anyone got a clue as to how that worked on a display which doesn't raster? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.195.68.169 (talk) 10:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Looking at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJzSo-nk93w the resolution looks pretty low, so maybe the vectrex is strobing a grid pattern at low brightness to tickle the pen. Kaleja (talk) 18:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Replaced by the mouse

Would it be relevant to say that the light pen was replace by the mouse? It seems like they both serve the same purpose with the mouse being more comfortable to use. Perhaps it should be mentioned in the article? --MadDawg2552 (talk) 16:29, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

No, light pens can also be used in circumstances where you don't have a surface to move a mouse on, like with a portable or wall-mounted screen. Modern replacement would more likely be a touchscreen.. -- Alwin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.240.190.250 (talk) 23:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It's perhaps unfair to say the light pen was replaced by the mouse, since the light pen was never ubiquitous. However, you could liken it to the video 'format wars' in that keyboard and mouse became the de facto standard for computer input. Aalthough comfort may have played a role, this was probably more for technical reasons since a light pen has to be tightly synchronised with a video display. 86.24.249.149 (talk) 10:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The Lincoln Wand was not a Light Pen

The Lincoln Wand mentioned in RFC 1 was an ultrasonic 3d input device, not a light pen. The first light pen appears to have been developed as part of the Whirlwind (computer) project in 1952 (see http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/lesson2.html and picture at http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=light+pen&i=46079,00.asp (labelled as a 'light gun' but fitting the description of a light pen). --Chris Tyler (talk) 00:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

LCD light pen / CMI Series 30a

After watching the youtube video about the CMI Series 30A, it's pretty clear from watching that what they are calling a light pen is nothing of the sort, but is actually a wacom style magnetic resonance device. IF you watch that video, and notice how he can move a mouse cursor by hovering over the screen and then tap to 'click', it works identically to a wacom input device.

The basic principles upon which a light pen works simply don't work with a LCD, so I really don't see the claim that this device uses a light pen as being techincally accurate. I think the statement was much more marketing than technical accuracy.

Benklop (talk) 16:10, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

The device in the video linked is a light pen being used on a monochrome CRT. You can track a cursor across the screen with a light pen, often from several inches away. Nothing the operator is doing precludes it from being a light pen. Dgb32 (talk) 15:05, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

References

SAGE

Maybe the use of lightguns on airspace surveillance terminals deserves a mention. see Semi-Automatic Ground Environment and AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Central for more details. The FSQ-7 was in effect a derivative of the Whirlwind, which is mentioned in the article as the first computer with a light pen. --BjKa (talk) 10:54, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

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Major rewrite needed

This article is in pretty bad shape - not only is it lacking a ton of information and media that could be included about the light pen, there's been some edits that result in sentences that don't make any grammatical sense. I will do what I can to clean this up. Dgb32 (talk) 15:07, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

I found the source for the mentioned Hitachi "System-on-glass" as the current reference from the wayback machine does not actually contain any content.

https://www.eetimes.com/japanese-display-makers-strain-to-regain-footing/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239411434_A_Novel_Low-Power-Consumption_All-Digital_System-on-Glass_Display_with_Serial_Interface

The proposed "light pen" for this system is an inversion of how a light pen is typically defined. This system would have incorporated light sensors into the display, with the pen emitting light. I don't think this product went anywhere, and if any pens were produced for it, they never became notable as "light pens." What we have at best is a passing reference to some twenty year old press release. There is no reason to include mention of it in this article. Dgb32 (talk) 00:13, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

I've rewritten the intro section. There really wasn't any room to just reword a few things, it was pretty much all bad except the opening sentence.

I agreed with whomever called the claim that light pens were more precise than touchscreens "dubious" - I'd go further and say it was just irrelevant, there's no fundamental resolution implied by either technology, so comparing them by that metric isn't useful even if it was correct.

Instead, I chose to compare how touchscreens and light pens operate. Most readers will be familiar with how touchscreens work - so I think this gives a reader the "Aha, so that's how a light pen works" up front if they choose not to read any further. Dgb32 (talk) 00:51, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm less confident in rewriting the early history section. I have some reading to do. Looking at some other entries in the talk page, we might have a point or two of contention about the first light pen system. In the list of light pens, I see some notable omissions - things like the DEC Type 30 deserve a mention due to their major significance in computing history. The Type 30 might make for a good segue into bi-phosphor CRTs.

There's some awfully casual phrasing too - "This is not very surprising" - this fails the tone check for sure. Dgb32 (talk) 00:59, 31 March 2026 (UTC)