Sunday, April 9, 2023

Evidence for an earlier opening date for Star Laser Force

Based on research of the Laser Tag Museum, Star Laser Force was believed to have opened April 16, 1985. This assumes that the Houston Magazine article was in error when giving an October, 1984 opening date, a fair guess considering they mixed up a few details when describing Photon and Star Laser Force and their game play.

That article is no longer the earliest reference I have, though.

Black-and-white advertisement with plain text and geometric line art


This ad in The Rice Thresher, the student newspaper of Rice University, has the same low-budget style seen in early brochures. The publication date of December 7, 1984 suggests that indeed Star Laser Force was open not long after the business name was registered with the County (September 7, 1984; file #638264). On this basis I find October 1984 plausible, leaving it still the 3rd laser tag arena to open on the planet, just after Laser Zone in Chicago.


Saturday, January 29, 2022

Writer shot 28 times in 6½ minutes―lives!

This early article about Photon appeared in the November 12, 1984 edition of Advertising Age, and is an exemplary piece of writing—detailed and accurate, with analysis, opinion, and personal experience.


[Transcribed for the web from] Advertising Age, November 12, 1984

Disruption’ in Dallas
Writer shot 28 times in 6½ minuteslives!

By KEVIN McMANUS



Someday in the future, perhaps during my lifetime, some genius will invent a game whose theme is the harmless but utterly realistic indulgence in all imaginable pleasures. Each player will be able to invent and partake in unlimited personal variations on that theme.

For example, my own variations would have names such as Time Machine, Pulitzer Prize, Wisdom, Money No Object, Invisibility, Flying and Marathon Upset.

Don’t ask me about format. However, I can assure you that this will not be a board game, nor a videogame, nor will it require a flat, grassy playing surface, cumbersome equipment, steroids, extraordinary intelligence or lots of money. Referees and reservations will be unnecessary, weather will be irrelevant and any number of people will be able to play together.

Perhaps it will be known as The Big Game, or Seventh Heaven, or simply It. “Nothing on the tube tonight, pet. Shall we play It?”

Alas, it seems unlikely that It’s creator is out there among the world’s scientists, inventors, engineers, biotechnologists and computer geeks. So, until he or she arrives on the scene, we will have to content ourselves with Photon.

In case you haven’t heard about it, Photon is a new game that, in terms of conceptual brilliance and socioeconomic wallop, may ultimately occupy a place between basketball and It.

(Then again, it may not. For my opinion, skip to the last section of the story.)

At present, you can play Photon in only one place—Dallas—but there will be franchised outlets doing business soon in many cities. The first New York City-area franchises are scheduled to open in January, but I didn’t want to wait that long to achieve my first “Photon experience.”

▪ ▪ ▪


In Dallas, two things took me aback immediately: How old Photon’s most frequent players are, and how seriously they regard the game.

Male, age 31: “Have you ever seen the movie ‘Rollerball’? [Describes movie: Futuristic setting, war, motorcycles, violence, gore.] The story is about a gentleman named Jonathan E. He was the best Rollerball player there was. That’s how I look upon myself. I want to be the Jonathan E. of Photon.”

In the darkened laser tag maze, one player shoots another at close range.

Zap! A computer is about to register a "disruption" worth 10 points for the shooter and -10 to his victim. The Ad Age darkroom made visible the beam of unseen infrared light.


Male, age 36: “We got people comin’ in here all the time that are ecstatic when they get 400 points. If I get 400 points, I’m embarrassed. If I don’t get at least 700, I don’t feel like I’ve really played well. I don’t score as many thousand-pointers as a lot of these guys do, but I don’t work at it as hard, either.”

Female, age 26: “My team is not abnormally good, but we’re very friendly. We cheer on the Jetsons because they always have real bad scores. We started giving them some training—helped them increase their accuracy. When you fire you have to be on target each time or you’re wasting shots. Don’t stand still when you’re getting shot.”

Male, age 26: “I like the idea of tournaments against other cities’ players. Absolutely. That’s the only way to determine who is the best. I intend to go to the first Photon that opens in Houston.”

▪ ▪ ▪


Yes, friend, Photon is a game in which adults run around firing guns at one another and accumulating points. (Kids play, too, but the median age of the serious Photon player is 24.) The guns are called phasers and they fire beams of infrared light. When the beam from player A’s phaser hits its target—either the chest piece or helmet of player B—a radio signal is transmitted from a microcomputer implanted in B’s chest piece to a central computer at the edge of the playing field. The central computer adds 10 points to A’s score and subtracts 10 points from B’s.

Once “disrupted” by A’s shot (Photon spokesmen discourage use of the word “kill” in this context), B is unable to fire his own phaser for a few seconds. But he can still be hit again by enemy fire and lose more points. B’s best option here is to seek cover.

Players distinguish opponents from teammates on the near-dark playing field by the colored lights on everyone’s helmet. There are two teams, green and red, the player strength of each depending on how many customers are waiting in line when a new game starts. (Games vary from one-on-one to 10-on-10.) You know an opponent has been disrupted when you see his helmet lights turn yellow and start blinking. When you’ve been disrupted, you hear a certain noise inside your helmet.

Photon junkie Beathan awaits his next fix.


Each game lasts 6½ minutes; at the end, players leave the field through a doorway that leads to a room where they remove their gear and check their scores in a tv monitor.

There are more particulars that circumscribe play, and the most important of them are the design of the playing field, the team bases at either end of it and the 5-ft. rule.

The playing field is a room roughly the size of a tennis court, with a 16-ft. ceiling. In it is an asymmetric arrangement of pillars, partitions, hallways, stairways, ramps, platforms, catwalks, and rows of variously-sized, open-ended chambers that players refer to as “the catacombs.” The motif is meant to evoke certain settings in the movies “Star Wars” and “Tron.” In the middle of the room is an observation deck that patrons reach via a stairway and a short catwalk.

At either end of the room is a rectangular, floor-to-ceiling column with a pyramidal, ever-blinking lamp attached about halfway up. This is known as the base, and both teams have one. At the foot of the base, between the column and the wall, teammates muster before each game.

Once a game begins, each player’s principal goal is to shoot the opponent’s base three times without interruption. When the third shot registers, the player gets 200 points. You can shoot your opponent’s base as often as you want, but the computer awards you those 200 points only once per game.

The 5-ft. rule, which refers to the distance between opposing players, is meant to keep hostile warriors from intentionally engaging in physical contact. Otherwise, a player can move about freely on the field, or can spend the whole game hiding.

▪ ▪ ▪



Each new player is required to buy, for $3.50, a Photon ID card that is to be honored at all franchises, forever. (So I’m told.) Game tickets cost another $3 apiece. Before posing for the ID photo, you fill out a release form that asks your name, address, phone number and age. When you play, you wear your bar-coded card in a slot attached to your chest piece, or “pod” (Remember? the device with the implanted microcomputer?).

How clever. Photon’s main computer can match your personal data with your playing habits. How often you come in, how many games you play per visit and with whom, how well you score. Once the franchisees’ computers start feeding their customer data to headquarters in Dallas, Photon Amusements’ marketing whizzes will be able to put it all together 20 different ways, analyze it, identify trends and continually fine-tune their national marketing strategy.

“We want to be able to keep a step ahead of customers’ whims,” said Dan Allen, the company’s 30-year-old marketing director, who formerly served in the same capacity at Domino’s Pizza.

Wait—there’s more.

Precise customer data, important to any business enterprise, is especially vital to Photon because its strategists aim to push the game into the realm of competitive sport. In that effort, individual and team statistics—fresh and exhaustive—are all-important. For Photon, gaining access to these statistics would seem to be a matter of writing the proper software. Zap—it’s done.

A year from now, when several franchises have been operating awhile, sports fans might actually be able to follow teams in a national Photon league. That, at any rate, is the dream of George Carter III, the man who conceived and helped design the game.

“There’s no distinction between a game and a sport,” said Mr. Carter, 39, Photon’s president. “Kids go out and play basketball on the street, for fun. But then people also play basketball as a true professional sport. So It think Photon could be both. All the elements of sport exist in this game.”

Somewhat more grandiosely, he pronounces, “Traditional games will probably dwindle. You’re seeing the first glimpse of a true future sport.”

Since Photon opened in April, approximately 15,000 people have played. At least 500 have become regulars who show up once a week, usually to play more than one game. Of them, 60 have joined the 12-team league that formed in July.

▪ ▪ ▪



I played my first game on a Tuesday afternoon. The doors had just opened and customers were so sparse that there were long (10 to 20 minute) intervals between games. Up on the observation deck I’d met a fellow named Victor Egly, a 34-year-old musician, who had brought his 13-year-old son, Jason, to play. Victor said he was there as an observer, but he soon let me talk him into playing one game, on the condition that I buy his ticket.

We were both put on the green team, along with another guy. On the red side were Jason, who would be playing his third game, and two other kids. The 18 lbs. of battle gear—battery belt, pod, and helmet—felt heavy, but did not much inhibit my walking, running or crouching movements.

The phaser, which was hooked up to my pod by a Photon attendant, was metal-and-plastic, with a springy trigger and a long barrel. When I pointed it, a red light would flash on at the barrel’s rear end whenever the weapon was focused on a target. If I fired and hit the target, I would hear a sound inside my helmet—errarrarrarr—much like the sound a car engine makes when you try to start it on a dying battery. When I fired and missed, or when someone shot me, I heard two different sounds that I can describe only as synthesized, futuristic and altogether goofy.

An attendant ushered our team through a door to our station beneath the green base. To ensure that our phasers were working properly we fired at our base and at the helmets of the red players, who were being led to their base. Then a female voice could be heard from above: “Welcome, Photon warriors. Commence strategic maneuvers at audible command signal. Five, four, three, two, one. . . begin.” Our team scattered and I was on my own.

It took me only about 30 seconds to discover what marketing vp Dan Allen meant when he told me size and strength are insignificant in this game compared to cunning, agility and experience. Ghostlike, the red kids would appear suddenly, zap me and flee. Many times, too, I would hear the noise in my helmet telling me I’d been disrupted, but would be unable to figure out which direction the shots came from. Eventually I’d look up and see red lights bobbing on a catwalk. The 6½ minutes seemed more like 15; at no time during the game did I feel silly. Afterward, I confess, I wanted to play more.

I ended up with a minus-80, which would have been a minus-280 had I not gotten the red base. Victor scored something like minus-200 and, worse, still was breathing hard 10 minutes after we removed our gear. “I felt my knees getting a little weak there toward the end,” he said. “Cigarets, you know.”

Victor had been confused by the field’s layout. “I went across that bridge there and came down in that little maze, and after that I never got it together again to see where I was. Also, I never got the sounds down right.

“I kept thinking the sounds were coming from my gun, when actually there was someone standing behind me, just blowing my brains away.”

Jason, who had gotten a 270, joined us. I asked him what was the secret to scoring well. “Learning how to hide real good,” he said. “Learning what the field looks like. You need to know real good how to aim the gun ’cause it doesn’t really have a good aim thing on it. It’s pretty fat.”

Did Jason know about the Photon league? “I just heard about it,” he said. “I think it’d be pretty neat to enter because if you win you get trophies and hats and stuff.”

▪ ▪ ▪



Wednesday night. League night.

The members of Wolf Pack, a high-scoring and popular team, exuberant over a 1900-point victory, discuss strategy between games.

“I’m gonna take the base this time, but you need to be in there because we had ’em making single-man runs underneath the ramp.”

“You know how to take ’em out from there? You just go around the front, shoot ’em three times, lean in and clear your gun.”

“I was hittin’ from up top over the balcony. You can hit ’em from there if you just get the right angle on it, lean far enough over and don’t fall out.”

“That one guy in the blue shirt is maybe a 200-average player. So if you see him over there you’ll be able to take him out.”

Wolf Pack is comprised of the following players:

Hope Meredith, 26, dancer and free-lance choreographer. Hope wears her blond hair in a long braid and spends many idle moments doing stretching exercises. “Playing Photon isn’t really a substitute for any other activity. It’s completely extracurricular. If I weren’t doing this, I’d be dancing.”

Michael Boswell, 26, electrical engineer. “I’m just a gamer; I’ll play anything.” How does Photon stack up against videogames? “In video parlors you’re playing against a computer, and here you’re playing against a person. It makes all the difference in the world.”

Three teammates suited up ready to play discuss strategy. One has a hachimaki. Another gestures past the camera.

Wolf Pack teammates muster before league night battle.

Jim Traylor, 26, furniture salesman. Jim used to work next door to Photon, came in one day out of curiosity, now is “totally addicted,” plays 15 to 20 games each week. “This can be an expensive habit if you play as much as I do. I work 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day. I work and work and work and play Photon.”

David White, 27, Photon attendant. Before joining Photon, David worked for five years as a singer for a singing telegram company. He would love to manage a Photon franchise. “It’s a little bit like Six Flags, IBM and a singing telegram company all rolled into one.”

Beathan, 31. An ex-biker (in Dallas) and ex-tank commander (Vietnam), he describes himself as a starving artist and told me not to mention his last name here. He wears shoulder-length black hair and a Fu Manchu mustache. Probably the only true Photon junkie, he plays game after game, six days a week. “One day five years from now I plan to be sitting in a Photon stadium as big as Texas Stadium with 50,000 people chanting my name.”

▪ ▪ ▪



As of last October, Photon Amusements had signed deals with franchisees in Southern California, New Jersey, Houston, Chicago, Phoenix and Denver. Both Canada and the U.K. were under master franchises, and Photon had signed a tentative agreement with a group based in Taiwan and Hong Kong that will be the master franchisee in the Far East.

In New York, a group of businessmen has united as a Photon franchisee syndicate. They plan to build a minimum of 10 playing fields (two fields per outlet, in most cases) in the New York City-Long Island-Connecticut area. Gary Adornato, formerly a broker with Shearson/American Express, is chairman of the syndicate. Adornato walked into the Dallas Photon in the waning hours of league night, and we talked.

He told me about the other syndicate board members. “These are people who are not usually followers of fashion,” he said. “They are each principals of their own firm; each of the firms is a fairly significant entity in its field of expertise. And they’ve all come together as extremely strong proponents of what first seemed to be a fairly esoteric concept.” Photon franchisees pay a fee of $50,000 per unit, plus 5% of each month’s gross. The cost to build and equip one unit is between $300,000 and $350,000.

I asked Adornato if his group’s franchises would differ much from the 10,000-sq.-ft. Dallas unit, which is actually an operating prototype. “Photon is a social activity,” he said. “You come out and you’re compelled to share your experience. In keeping with that, we’re going to use 30,000-sq.-ft. sites with four major components.” These will be food and beverages, Photon merchandise (cups, t-shirts, hats, etc.), entertainment (possibly videogames) and a locker room.

A locker room? Will customers actually want to shower and change clothes after playing Photon, as they do at a health club? “Think about it,” said Adornato, a beefy guy who wore the beginnings of a beard that evening. “You’re in New York—it’s December—it’s snowing outside. You’ve played four games and you’re sweaty and your pants are tacky. And you’re going to get in your car and drive home that way?”

All the extras—food, merchandise, the locker room—are going to contribute to the “Photon experience,” said Adornato. “We want it to be an evening’s entertainment. You come out for three or four hours and you may play three or four games, but there’ll be other environmental things you’ll want to do as part of it—Photon being the focus.”

Had he played the game yet? “No more than 40 or 50 times,” he said. “I play a little too sporadically to get better, but I feel I’m more in control of the environment now. There’s a very definite learning curve in this game.”

▪ ▪ ▪



Photon’s rules, equipment, playing field and supporting software were designed during a 10-month period beginning in May, 1983. That’s when George Carter started to act upon his notion that people would find enormous pleasure in playing a game that pitted human competitors against one another in “Star Wars” and “Tron”-inspired battles.

Carter, who had owned go-cart tracks and three Chaparral Grand Prix miniature race tracks, didn’t have the technical know-how to bring his idea to life. So he found someone who did: Jim Dooley, an electronic design contractor. Dooley, then 35, had designed such things as an underwater vehicle for inspecting pipelines, an electronic pipe-measuring device and an integrated-circuit tester.

After the first prototype equipment was built, Carter, Dooley and others spent hour after hour playing the game, trying to figure out how to make it fun and safe and challenging. Their constant tinkering yielded the components of the game as it’s played today. Sometime between now and Christmas, new player gear and computer software will replace the equipment that has been in place since April, and there will be some rule adjustments. “All the electronics will be more reliable,” said Dooley. “And we’ll be able to play 40 players at a time instead of 20.”

The fat, bearded Mr. Dooley is as casual and unkempt as his boss Mr. Carter is natty. While a recent eye operation keeps Mr. Carter from playing much these days, Mr. Dooley’s game continually improves with constant practice. He claims to be the oldest player who’s ever scored more than 1,000 points in a game, and he is at work on a book about Photon strategy.

Photon is not only Mr. Dooley’s most complex project so far, it is the only one in which he has chosen to stay involved after the initial work was done. “I’ll probably hang around this thing for quite a while,” he told me one afternoon while he was hanging around waiting for a game to start. “I’m trying to get one of my own franchises.”

▪ ▪ ▪



George Carter, his franchisees and many other individuals are going to make big money over the next few years, but I strongly doubt that Photon will ever achieve the status of a national sport. Certainly it is a brilliant, wonderfully executed concept, and great fun to play. But unlike basketball—to which Carter compared it—Photon is expensive, too expensive for most players to practice a lot.

Think about it. If court time cost $3 per six minutes, how many basketball professionals—or even accomplished amateurs—would there be?

Furthermore, I’m automatically suspicious of any new enterprise that receives the extensive, uncritical publicity that Photon has gotten since the Dallas outlet opened last April. Forbes, Inc., Venture, “Today,” “Entertainment Tonight” and innumerable daily newspapers and radio shows have devoted space and airtime to George Carter’s new game.

Newsweek gave it an entire page, observing that “the biggest risk in Photon may be its addictive nature; some devotees manage to spend as much as $100 per day.” I wonder how many such devotees exist. I didn’t meet any when I was there. (Photon junkie Beathan plays for free, as a member of the company’s promotional team.)

You can expect a second wave of media coverage to begin in January, as Photon franchises begin opening around the country. You can expect to hear about long lines at all the new outlets. Eventually you may even read about a national Photon tournament.

But don’t believe all the hype about traditional games dwindling because of this brand-new one. At three bucks a pop, the Photon experience is hardly a sporting proposition for the inhabitants of this planet. #

Saturday, August 10, 2019

What music played in Star Laser Force?

Other than a brief mention in this writeup, I really haven't addressed the music played in the arena at Star Laser Force. I tried to work out a partial list about five years ago, but with little success. My own memory is unfortunately tainted by watching the VHS tape of Rendez-vous Houston too many times while shopping at Radio Shack, where they apparently had it on endless loop.

Jean-Michel Jarre was definitely a big part of it; this blog post agrees. So far I believe these are all correct:


After that, I'm stuck. Hit me up if you think of any others.

Sunday, September 9, 2018

Final Test



This short video is from the final testing and photo shoot for the Star Laser Force pack. I used a flashlight to "shoot" the pack and score points.

Interestingly, you can't just shine bright light on the sensors to set it off; it has to be a pulse. With my hand on the switch the "pulses" were about 200mS. If you step through the video you'll see there is an additional delay of about 200mS before the first visible response. This filtering of ambient light sources was all done with discrete components and a couple of 74LS132 Schmitt trigger ICs.

Regrettably none of my videos have sound, so I've lost my chance to record the "boom" or hit sound. It's nothing, really, just a discrete noise generator circuit that was meant to sound like a gunshot. If I had to build a replacement "boom" sound board tomorrow I'd probably use a 76477 sound chip. The results would sound about the same.

Monday, July 9, 2018

Off to the Laser Tag Museum

Isn't it amazing that laser tag, which was thought to be a passing fad when it was invented, is more popular than ever today? 30-plus years later, we all benefit from the technical progress over the years. I admire Erik, the curator of the Laser Tag Museum, for using his extensive connections in the industry to round up examples of nearly every known commercial laser tag system, and to try to write the very specific history of this unusual intersection between electronic game and sport.

The Star Laser Force pack has been refurbished expressly to be set up for display in the Museum at a future date. My primary goal was to get it to light up, giving it the same appearance as it would have had in its native arena. It wasn't too hard, but some parts, especially the helmet, were time consuming.

After some experimentation, I found that I could feed power into the BOOM sound module as well as the main board, so the restored helmet's new speaker now works as well, instead of just the lights. You may ask, who cares if there's a hit sound, if it's just sitting on display? If you've been following along, you know that you weren't allowed to take pictures in the arena at Star Laser Force for a reason. So consider it an Easter egg of sorts, that when you shoot a flash picture of this pack, you'll actually be shooting the pack and you may be able to score points. Since it's designed to score using strobe flash only, I found it to be a bit tricky with a mobile phone LED, but it can be done at close range, and I have been blinking the "flashlight" feature on my phone at the pack to carry out most of my shooting tests.

Panoramic photo of the Museum's displays showing at least 19 different systems.
Old photo of some of the Museum's displays.

Front view of the restored laser tag pack with illuminated score display.
Kick me
So if you should happen to visit the Laser Tag Museum some day in the future, you may come across this Star Laser Force pack on display. If so, please shoot it. You may hear in response, through the display glass, a tiny burst of sound, a faint sigh from the past.

Plus you'll score 10 points. Hooray for our side.

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Restored Star Laser Force pack (suit)

Here are a few photos of the restored Star Laser Force pack.
Front view of the restored laser tag pack displayed on a dressmaker's dummy. It is red in color with a dull-colored aluminum box on the front, and a white holster tube on the side. Cables go up and over the shoulders to the back. There is no gun.
Front view.

A side view of the laser tag pack. Both the front and back aluminum boxes are visible, and the shoulder pad is prominent in the center.
Side view.

A three-quarters rear view of the restored pack showing the back box, the helmet being plugged into the top of the box.
Back view.

Front view of the restored laser tag pack with illuminated score display.
Powered up and ready (no gun available).
Three-quarter view of the front of the pack from the left side. The room is dark and the red LEDs on the helmet are glowing. A glowing red LED display on the front box reads a score of 310.
Powered up and functional, excluding gun.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Musings on my own bad memory



Memory is a fickle thing.

For instance, I believed the helmet on this system had over a dozen LEDs. Obviously I had confused it with another project. I imagined there was a speaker in the gun itself for the shooting sound. Maybe this was the case in some suits, but from what I've seen the speaker is in the helmet where it can be more clearly heard over the arena music track. My mistake, the gun sound board is in fact wired to the gun connector, as documented in this very blog. The sound board is not in the gun itself, however.

After seeing some of the old equipment, I seem to recall there being those peanut lights on either side of the face, but why are they there? My working theory is that they were originally meant to add a faint edge-lit glow to the face shield, but the shield wasn't used in the game so they may have fallen by the wayside. A second example of the equipment has LEDs there and so my refurbished helmet also does.

I had once imagined all discrete decade counters and 7-segment display encoders running the score display. Thank goodness the 74C925 was available when this unit was designed; it runs all 3 digits with its multiplexed output, a perfect choice for this application. There are decade counters but that's for counting scored points (and, by extension, for timing the delay before you can be hit again).

Monday, July 31, 2017

Home stretch

Reconstruction of the display pack is almost done. There seems to be a flaky connection somewhere causing the score to go up; this was a VERY common symptom back in the day. If I can find it I'm going to fix it. The helmet needs to be lined, and another polish would be good too. There's some crud to be scrubbed off the boxes and dirt on the plastic shell, and more work to be done on the fabric trim.

(Edit: I did find the bad connection on the terminal strip in the upper left corner of the battery box.)

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Reconstructing the helmet


The helmet being reconstructed has been gutted and its insides blown clean.


The helmet is upside-down on a cluttered workbench. The Styrofoam crush layer inside has wires running from place to place, powering the LEDs. The bench has a coil of more wire, a multimeter, a glue gun, pen and paper with a terminal diagram, and a screw terminal block.
Helmet cleaned up and being rewired.


The team color LEDs were not so good. One LED was too dim and did not match the others, and another one had a cracked leg. Both of these and their dropping resistors were replaced, and the whole chain rewired neatly.


There was no speaker; a 1980s vintage paper cone speaker was added. It fits perfectly in the recess provided.


A closer view of the interior of the helmet shows the terminal block installed in a wide notch that has been cut out of the Styrofoam. A speaker also sits in a hole in the foam. The LED wires have been taped and glued down.
Laying out the new wiring.
The terminal strip is new and serves to make repair easier, should it ever be needed.


The original harness was also secured with duct tape, but it was just trash. Sloppy connections, wads of wire, and a big pillar of ground wires soldered together in free space.

All of this was removed, including the peculiar stubby cable that was too short (and doesn't actually plug into any known connector). This new cable uses the correct mil-spec connector, plugs directly into the suit, and matches the original in appearance if not durability.

A close-up of a worn Amp CPC plastic connector next to an olive green military grade connector.
Incorrect helmet connector on left. Correct connector on right (plugs into back box on vest).

On the other end of this cable, I went with a cheap screw-terminal strip since this will be for display purposes only. All this and some layers of felt for appearance's sake complete the display helmet.




Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Considering the helmet


Time to catch up on posts. First, some reflection on the helmet I'm refurbishing.

The holes in the helmet being reconstructed do not match the one that was on display at the Laser Tag Museum, nor do they line up with my recollection. On the helmet for refurbishment there are two cheek holes; the next LEDs (one on each side) are only a few inches back; and there are no holes on the sides, front, or back for hit detectors.

The side view of a helmet with several holes for LEDs, which lay on the bench behind the helmet.
Side has two LEDs and a light bulb, but—alas, poor Yorick!no hit sensors.


Compare this to the helmet previously on display at the Museum in 2015, where each cheek has only one LED; the next LEDs have been moved up where they will be better visible from above; and sensors have been added which can be hit from the sides or from above. Since shoulder-top sensors and lights had not been invented in those days, these would be a must for multi-level arenas.
The side view of a helmet with two LEDs and a light sensor labeled.
Much easier to see or hit this player.


Returning to the reconstruction helmet, there is also a parietal cluster of four holes on the left side which could have had sensors; but if so, why only on one side, and all in one place?  There is nothing like this on the other sample.

A view of the crown of a helmet with four holes seen in a rough cluster.
Suspiciously located over a rounded pocket that just happens to fit a small speaker.

The speaker was missing when the helmet arrived for reconstruction, but this is the most likely place for it, and perhaps it was meant to be heard from outside the helmet as a result of these holes.

A close-up view of a paper cone speaker.
The interior is now fitted with a vintage speaker.

I've tentatively concluded that this helmet was never fitted with hit sensors at all, which may explain why its cable and connector had only 4 wires (2 for LEDs, 2 for speaker) on a stubby cable with an Amp CPC connector which is not used anywhere else in the system.

I built the correct cable in the original style, long enough to reach the connector on the pack, which uses an Amp 3470 series Mil-spec connector ... unquestionably the single best design decision made on this pack design.

Two connectors (see next post).
Oddball connector on the left. Correct, military grade connector on the right (granted, with strain relief suitable for display only). 

Perhaps this helmet was a prototype or test fixture not used in the game. Or maybe (since it is a youth size helmet) it was offered to allow younger, inexperienced players a handicap to improve their scores. Who knows?

It remains to be seen whether the refurbished unit will have the audio circuits working, but we are at least prepared if that turns out to be possible.

Edit: Improved discussion of helmet connector.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Star Laser Force's Light Gun


Why are there no photos of people playing Star Laser Force?  You're about to find out.

The only available weapon for the Star Laser Force suit (pack) was the attached light pistol, which was holstered at the left side of the logic box. Unfortunately I don't have one of these for the pack that I'm restoring. However, I was able to visit the Laser Tag Museum and examine both of the available extant pistols for future reference.

Side view of a toy plastic light gun with a modified barrel.
Pistol on display at the Laser Tag Museum, November 2015


The pistol contains a simple photography flash circuit powered by a 2.4VDC supply provided by the pack. At the business end of the pistol you can see a bit of the glass flashtube sticking out of the potted assembly. After the circuit charged (which took several seconds), pulling the trigger would result in a bright white flash. If you let the flash capacitor charge longer before firing, the higher-energy shot would have greater range.

Closeup of wide muzzle with flash tube protruding from white potting material
Muzzle of the pistol with the extended barrel removed.

The unit currently on display in the Museum is missing the barrel extension that narrows the flash to a tight beam. The video previously posted shows the barrel:
Still from video showing barrel that is supposed to extend from the muzzle
It doesn't work right without this.

Some clever (cheating) players found that the nozzle could sometimes be removed, transforming the pistol into a close quarters "grenade" with a wide cone of damage.

Hitting any sensor on a pack with this beam caused the pack to register a hit and count up 10 points against the player wearing that pack. Naturally it was important to aim only at the opposing team's players, as you could hit anyone from either team.

Still frame from video showing hand on holstered light gun. Another suit is being prepared in the foreground
Pistol in holster on front of the suit.

Because any sufficiently bright flash scored damage against players, it was against the rules to bring cameras onto the playing field, and unfortunately this has meant that photos of the game actually being played are either rare or non-existent. Had there been an observation window or any other facilities for spectators, disruption of the game would inevitably follow.


One final technical note: A few sites on the web suggest that Star Laser Force was an ancestor to the original 1980s Lazer Tag home systems by Worlds of Wonder. While the game play and concept translated well enough into toy form, there are no comparisons to be made in circuit design. Lazer Tag has always used invisible infrared light signals, and has never used white light.  However, there was a home system some years later that did use a flashtube to trigger hits on the sensor, and that was Buddy L Phaser Force.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Project update

More posts coming on the Star Laser Force equipment soon; in the mean time, have a look at Tiviachick's tour video of the actual Laser Tag Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, featuring none other than the curator, Erik Guthrie. There is a different story behind each piece of equipment, and you'll get to hear a small sampling of them in this video. The exhibits are free to visit, by the way, and you can play laser tag while you're there!



Sunday, March 6, 2016

Color brochure

The museum site posted a full-color scan of the Star Laser Force sales brochure from 1985, including a full-color copy of the promotional photo that I posted back when this blog first began. Now I can update my sidebar with a decent copy of this iconic image.

Inside a bi-fold black brochure with white text, color photo, and a map

This confirms the original pricing of $3 for a 7 minute game. (The play price was reduced in 1986, after the arrival of Photon in December 1985 ate into sales. According to the Gina Seay article, "member" pricing had fallen to $1.25 per game by summer of 1986.)

Text of the brochure follows:

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Front box and logic


On to the logic board inside the front box of the Star Laser Force pack, or suit. I was personally eager to see this system again after so many years, and while it looks exactly as I remembered it, it's actually much more plain in both design and function; memory utterly failed me in several details.

With no computer, no radio, and no networking or communication, Star Laser Force's simple, low-power logic board operated independently, offering up only the player's own score with no way of knowing which of your opponents (or teammates) attacked, or whether you were the careless victim of the Reactor at the center of the arena.

 

Interior of front aluminum box showing main circuit board with seven chips, ten transistors and wires attached to terminals on the edges
Behold the power of TTL discrete logic.


On the front, with the lid on, only the 3-digit score display, the amber status light, and one opto sensor for hits were visible.

Behind the logic board were two sound modules that appear to have been removed from other devices. The smaller one generates the gun "shot" sound while the other makes the noise when you are hit. The Star Laser Force gun was adapted from a noise-making toy, and I assume either one or the other sound board came from that product - who knows, maybe even both.

A peek under the main circuit board showing two smaller boards wrapped in yellowing adhesive tape
The hidden recipients of signal GUN and signal BOOM from the logic board.


The "duck box," as previously explained, resets the pack to the initial score of "000". This step was, at least in my memory, performed in the Transporter room during the "journey" to the playing field. If your pack's sensors were hit by a flash beam from another player, your pack would play the "hit" sound and count up 10 points against you, after which you could be hit again. Judging from the video that was posted, this took about 4 seconds; all the pack's lights flashed during this time to indicate that the player was hit. I haven't determined whether the gun was disabled during this time.

The pack also received a "shot" signal from the gun and triggered the "shot" sound effect. I don't have a gun so I'm not sure what sort of hacking was done to make this work.

Main circuit board on a desk showing score of "000" and surrounded by tools
Bench test.

The main board still seems to work perfectly. For display purposes I went ahead and unhooked the main filter cap (date coded 1973?!) and substituted a modern one.

I will post a technical discussion of the logic when time permits.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Tackling the battery box

The back box of the Star Laser Force pack is pretty much all batteries, which is not uncommon in the industry to this day, although technology has vastly improved since then! Each of the three separate power supplies used conventional NiCd cells.

View of the aluminum box on the rear of the suit, packed with rechargable batteries of various sizes
All hand built, too.
The single remaining AA cell was removed due to corrosion.