Playstation Light Gun

I've been toying for a while with an idea I've had for my final performance. I'm wanting use the plastic toy gun controller that you get with arcade-style shooting games on the playstation. It would be great to use as an instrument, varying the sound that is made, depending on whereabouts on the screen you shoot.

I wasn't sure exactly what I would be using the controller for, but decided to do some research as to how light guns actually work. One of the most important pieces of information that I discovered was that they only work with CRT (Cathode ray tube) televisions. In this particular type of television, an electron beam starts at the top and gradually works its away down the, going from one side to the other. The gun itself doesn't actually do any "shooting" but instead contains a photodiode, which "senses" light. When you're playing the game and you pull the trigger, the screen momentarily whitens. The playstation then calculates where you fired the shot based on the time difference between when the trigger was pulled and when the gun sensed the light coming from the television.

The idea I soon had was to make it so that the person playing the "instrument" would actually just be playing the game, but instead of the game soundtrack (consisting of gun shots and explosions) it would be replaced with the sound of the notes being created using Max/MSP. I could use one of these -

to connect the gun to my macbook.The problem I would have doing it this way is that I somehow need to send the information coming from the gun to both the playstation and the computer, and as far as I'm aware, there doesn't seem to be a way to do this.

I then had the idea to, instead of using a real playstation, use emulator software for the computer. This way I would not need to split the signal, since its going into the computer anyway. I can then use max/msp or another software to perform a similar calculation that the playstation would perform in order to work out where the gun is pointing on the screen. I found this program which I've now installed and its working - Click Here.

The next problem of course is that it needs to be pointing at a CRT television screen. I researched into what kind of cable I would need in order to attach my macbook to a TV. It turns out its harder than I originally thought to do because they don't make cables that connect directly from a mini display port to the red, white and yellow RCA connectors or SCART cable. I have, however looked into it and found a website where someone has managed to do it in a very round about way - Click Here (scroll down until you find the pictures).

Also, having thought about it I've had the idea that I might not even need the game, just pointing the gun at a white screen would have the same effect.