Please be advised: The Zapper Guns will not work on Plasma, LCD, or Projection screen televisions. If you have any questions about this, please do not hesitate to email before purchase.

The NES Zapper (or Famicom Light Gun in Japan) is a pistol-shaped electronic light gun sold as part of the original Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 and the Nintendo Famicom in 1984. The Japanese iteration was a realistic portrayal of a revolver style hand gun, but when released in North America was made to look like an unrealistic science fiction ray gun that also tied into the design of the NES. The gun has no real grip; the handle is hard plastic. Early Zappers were gray, but later the color was changed to a neon orange due to the fact that federal laws were passed in the US prohibiting toy guns from resembling real guns. It allowed players to aim at the TV. Different games used different targets; for example, the player may shoot ducks, clay pigeons, and many other targets.

The Zapper has a trigger action that takes quite a bit of force to pull back, and frequent trigger-pulling has caused many people to get tired muscles in their hands or forearms. Also, the trigger makes a loud characteristic 'p-kang' noise when pulled.

When the trigger was pulled, the game blanked out the screen with a black background for one frame, then, for one additional frame, drew a solid white rectangle around the sprite the user was supposed to be shooting at. The photodiode at the back of the Zapper would detect these changes in intensity and send a signal to the NES to indicate whether it was over a lit pixel or not. A drop followed by a spike in intensity signaled a hit. Multiple sprites were supported by flashing a solid white rectangle around each potential sprite, one per frame.