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Queen Victoria's First Person Shooter
Jul. 21st, 2005 02:26 pm110 years ago, the Automatic Target Machine Company introduced a revolutionary new arcade game called “The Electric Rifle.”
It featured a bulls-eye target and a full sized replica of a rifle. The rifle fired beams of light at compact optical sensors on the target. A “hit” would cause a bell to ring, and a “bullet hole” would appear in the target. With every hit, a score would be tallied and displayed beneath the target.
Later versions featured moving targets and sound effects like quacking ducks and plane engines. The sounds were produced mechanically, or with phonograph recordings. During WWI, targets of ducks and game animals were replaced with the Kaiser, and in WWII with "Japs" and bobbing Hitler dolls. By the 1920s, it was even possible to purchase a home version of the game, which seems to have run on batteries.
(The caption reads: "Hey there, men of the de-mobbed Freikorps! Forget about crippling inflation and the failure of the Kapp Putsch, all while impressing free-loving Weimar-era frauleins in the comfort of your own home! Yes, you can do it all with an electric rifle! All the fun of the trenches with 90% less gangrene!" Seriously. That's what it says. My dad was, like, born in Holland, so I can read Germanaise.)
One version, introduced in 1925, was a kind of penny gambling machine in a compact bartop case. You paid a penny for one shot from a light pistol. If you missed, you got a gumball. If you hit, you got a gumball and got your penny back. No electronics - not even vacuum tubes. All you need is some clever wiring, and you too can play Duck Hunt, circa 1895.
( Photos of electric-eye games below the cut... )
It featured a bulls-eye target and a full sized replica of a rifle. The rifle fired beams of light at compact optical sensors on the target. A “hit” would cause a bell to ring, and a “bullet hole” would appear in the target. With every hit, a score would be tallied and displayed beneath the target.
Later versions featured moving targets and sound effects like quacking ducks and plane engines. The sounds were produced mechanically, or with phonograph recordings. During WWI, targets of ducks and game animals were replaced with the Kaiser, and in WWII with "Japs" and bobbing Hitler dolls. By the 1920s, it was even possible to purchase a home version of the game, which seems to have run on batteries.
(The caption reads: "Hey there, men of the de-mobbed Freikorps! Forget about crippling inflation and the failure of the Kapp Putsch, all while impressing free-loving Weimar-era frauleins in the comfort of your own home! Yes, you can do it all with an electric rifle! All the fun of the trenches with 90% less gangrene!" Seriously. That's what it says. My dad was, like, born in Holland, so I can read Germanaise.)
One version, introduced in 1925, was a kind of penny gambling machine in a compact bartop case. You paid a penny for one shot from a light pistol. If you missed, you got a gumball. If you hit, you got a gumball and got your penny back. No electronics - not even vacuum tubes. All you need is some clever wiring, and you too can play Duck Hunt, circa 1895.
( Photos of electric-eye games below the cut... )
