A light pen is fairly simple to implement. Just like a light gun, a light pen works by sensing the sudden small change in brightness of a point on the screen when the electron gun refreshes that spot. By noting exactly where the scanning has reached at that moment, the X,Y position of the pen can be resolved. This is usually achieved by the light pen causing an interrupt, at which point the scan position can be read from a special register, or computed from a counter or timer. The pen position is updated on every refresh of the screen.
The light pen became moderately popular during the early 1980s. It was notable for its use in the Fairlight CMI, and the BBC Micro. IBM PC compatible CGA, HGC and some EGA graphics cards featured a connector for a light pen as well. Even some consumer products were given light pens, in particular the Thomson MO5 computer family. Because the user was required to hold his or her arm in front of the screen for long periods of time or to use a desk that tilts the monitor, the light pen fell out of use as a general purpose input device.
The first light pen was created around 1952 as part of the Whirlwind project at MIT.[2]
Since the current version of the game show Jeopardy! began in 1984, contestants have used a light pen to write down their wagers and responses for the Final Jeopardy! round.
Since light pens operate by detecting light emitted by the screen phosphors, some nonzero intensity level must be present at the coordinate position to be selected, because otherwise the pen won't get triggered.
