Possibilities for Vectrex?

[atarilovesyou]

I've always wondered what kind of things could be done with a Vectrex regarding today's technology. Would it be possible to run a decent clone of Asteroids on it? Or any other early Atari vector game?...I realize the guts of the original Vectrex aren't powerful enough to run such things, but is there some way using newer techniques or more memory...is it possible?

 

I've seen some youtube videos where outboard ROMs are played using the Vectrex as a screen, they looked pretty good. Does anybody know more this topic? Thanks.

[Turbogfx]

I sure think the Defender clone " Protector" looks fantastic. Ever watched that video on Youtube? Blew me away. I have a copy at home, it's just amazing.

[desiv]

I realize the guts of the original Vectrex aren't powerful enough to run such things

What? You haven't seen some of the Vectrex games then!!

There are some incredible games.

 

As for using the Vec as a monitor for original vector games, it's the (From memory here, so might be wrong) Zektor ZVG???

With that and Vector MAME, I think you can play any of the old games on that screen...

 

Seriously tho, look up Protector and Vector Pilot, and you'll see there's probably nothing the Vec couldn't do compared to the original arcade Vectors out there.

(Well, a few trade-offs as always, but not many)

 

desiv

[gliptitude]

The Vectrex actually has an Asteroids clone BUILT-IN to the console. It's called Minestorm and it's pretty sweet. There have been a couple other homebrew Asteroids clones also. ... Protector is absolutely amazing, better than any other version for me.

 

I'm not an expert on the technology, but one thing I'm aware of that is some advantage to the new programmers is that the cartridges can be bigger than the originals. I believe the originals were 16K and most new games are 32K, a couple of them larger than that I believe.

 

Not sure what you know about the Vectrex atarilovesyou, so you can let me know if I'm stating the obvious. But I think the Vectrex is pretty capable of doing what you are talking about. There was someone working on a Battlezone clone, but I think that person kind of disappeared. I believe there was someone else who worked on a Tempest clone. (If not there are a couple of great Tempest-like games in the original library with Web Wars and Bedlam).

 

You might check out this vector/vectrex forum:

 

http://vectorgaming.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=vectrex

 

It's a small community, but there are definitely people there interested in the subject and people who would be able to tell you the history of this sort of thing.

[BillyHW]

I've always wondered what kind of things could be done with a Vectrex regarding today's technology. Would it be possible to run a decent clone of Asteroids on it? Or any other early Atari vector game?...I realize the guts of the original Vectrex aren't powerful enough to run such things, but is there some way using newer techniques or more memory...is it possible?

 

I've seen some youtube videos where outboard ROMs are played using the Vectrex as a screen, they looked pretty good. Does anybody know more this topic? Thanks.

 

The Vectrex can't do Asteroids?

[desiv]

I believe there was someone else who worked on a Tempest clone.

Tsunami!!

Works with the driving controller for a great Tempest start...

I stay start because it wasn't completed, and apparently there was a system crash and the code was lost, I think.. :-(

And that programmer has receeded from the scene...

(That's from memory, so I hope I'm not mixing Vectrex stories....)

 

desiv

[gliptitude]

 

As for using the Vec as a monitor for original vector games, it's the (From memory here, so might be wrong) Zektor ZVG???

With that and Vector MAME, I think you can play any of the old games on that screen...

 

 

Wow, this is awesome! ... What would be the reason for using a Vectrex in this setup though (rather than a vector monitor)? ... Would setting it up this way involve rededicating the Vectrex to this purpose, and separating the Vectrex monitor from its console?

[desiv]

No, as I understood it at the time, there's just something you unplug on the Vectrex, and then you plug in the Zektor feed to it.

I think the demo I saw, they guy just had a hole in the back of the Vectrex for the cable for the Zektor.

 

To swap back, he would open up the Vectrex, unplug his cable and replug the original video connection.

 

So, it's not transparent, but it's not permanent.

 

As for the reason, I'm guessing its just that it's not that easy to get Vector monitors, and the Vectrex was handy.

 

I think you can do this with some Osciloscopes as well...

 

desiv

Edited May 4, 2012 by desiv

[ComputerSpaceFan]

There are some Asteroid remakes from the Vectrex homebrew scene, I can't recall their names right now but I can dig out my Vectrex and get back to you on this. The one downside though is when a lot of small rocks have to be displayed on screen, the poor little Vectrex'es CPU can't quite handle them all and the game suffers slowdown. The built-in Minestorm already mentioned is slightly different from Asteroids and avoids this slowdown issue.

[gliptitude]

 

As for the reason, I'm guessing its just that it's not that easy to get Vector monitors, and the Vectrex was handy.

 

I think you can do this with some Osciloscopes as well...

 

desiv

 

Cool. Since my last post I did see on the Zektor website that it works with oscilloscopes. ..I started looking at "vector monitors", "xy monitors" and oscilloscopes on ebay. I noticed a majority of oscilloscopes are small screens, maybe 5".

 

... Then I searched net for "huge oscilloscope" and eventually found an instructable for converting old televisions to oscilloscopes.

 

http://www.instructa...scope/?ALLSTEPS

 

I remember reading that the original Vectrex production was kind of out of convenience using a stock of regular BW television monitors which were modified to be vector displays. I wonder how reliably this could be done by a diligent hobbyist. ... The article I linked doesn't specify that this monitor could take an xy signal and display it. I have no idea how particular of a capability that is. He is just demonstrating its use as a waveform audio display...

Edited May 4, 2012 by gliptitude

[atarilovesyou]

There are some Asteroid remakes from the Vectrex homebrew scene, I can't recall their names right now but I can dig out my Vectrex and get back to you on this. The one downside though is when a lot of small rocks have to be displayed on screen, the poor little Vectrex'es CPU can't quite handle them all and the game suffers slowdown. The built-in Minestorm already mentioned is slightly different from Asteroids and avoids this slowdown issue.

 

That's the thing I was getting at with lack of CPU power...I know more than your average bear about the Vectrex, but I've also seen the limitations. I just think it would be pretty sweet if there was some way modern homebrewers found a way to squeeze more power from the machine. I checked out Protector and it looked great!...were those sounds from Robotron???..very convincing!

 

I just love vector based games...I need to track one down, I was just wondering what was out there on the homebrew scene.

[BigO]

As for the reason, I'm guessing its just that it's not that easy to get Vector monitors, and the Vectrex was handy.

 

I think you can do this with some Osciloscopes as well...

 

desiv

 

Cool. Since my last post I did see on the Zektor website that it works with oscilloscopes. ..I started looking at "vector monitors", "xy monitors" and oscilloscopes on ebay. I noticed a majority of oscilloscopes are small screens, maybe 5".

 

... Then I searched net for "huge oscilloscope" and eventually found an instructable for converting old televisions to oscilloscopes.

 

http://www.instructa...scope/?ALLSTEPS

 

I remember reading that the original Vectrex production was kind of out of convenience using a stock of regular BW television monitors which were modified to be vector displays. I wonder how reliably this could be done by a diligent hobbyist. ... The article I linked doesn't specify that this monitor could take an xy signal and display it. I have no idea how particular of a capability that is. He is just demonstrating its use as a waveform audio display...

 

I remember reading an article once about converting a monochrome display for use as a vector monitor. The majority of the work was in re-winding the yoke coils. I remember thinking that the reason for this was that the original TV yokes are made to be resonant at specific frequencies. But, it could just be that the vectrex system is looking for a different impedance for some other reason.

 

I think that article was something about using a 5" crt with the Vectrex...something like that.

 

EDIT:I think this is what I remember

http://www.playvectrex.com/

http://www.playvectr...rt/5inchcrt.zip

Edited May 4, 2012 by BigO

[Mayhem]

I'm not an expert on the technology, but one thing I'm aware of that is some advantage to the new programmers is that the cartridges can be bigger than the originals. I believe the originals were 16K and most new games are 32K, a couple of them larger than that I believe.

The machine always was able to handle up to 32k in one bank, it's just that no original game back in the day came anywhere near filling that. The largest commercially released game was 8k, and the unreleased Dark Towers was 12k. Since then, homebrew has filled the void heh... and a few games do use bankswitching to deliver 64k in total.

[gliptitude]

I'm not an expert on the technology, but one thing I'm aware of that is some advantage to the new programmers is that the cartridges can be bigger than the originals. I believe the originals were 16K and most new games are 32K, a couple of them larger than that I believe.

The machine always was able to handle up to 32k in one bank, it's just that no original game back in the day came anywhere near filling that. The largest commercially released game was 8k, and the unreleased Dark Towers was 12k. Since then, homebrew has filled the void heh... and a few games do use bankswitching to deliver 64k in total.

 

Pretty much no idea what any of this means, except that 32 is larger than 16, which is larger than 8, smaller than 64. I'd just imagined that technological progress made RAM or ROM or memory or whatever more accessible, and that one of these things was inside of the cartridges. I don't understand how a cartridge interfaces with a console, or how one could compensate for the other. What's bank switching?

[Mayhem]

The Vectrex has always been able to access up to 32k in one "lump" or bank. It's just that probably down to the cost of development, the cost of chips and production, that ROM sizes during its original lifespan were a lot smaller. As I noted, the largest commercial game released was 8k in size, although the unreleased version of Dark Tower is 12k in size.

 

Bankswitching was invented for the 2600 as the maximum ROM size the machine could access at one time is 4k. In order to allow bigger games... I'm sure some people can explain it better... there is a bit of extra technology on the circuit board, and code in the game telling the machine to switch to a certain "bank" of information stored in the ROM chip. The issue is that the console can see only the information in that particular bank and none other, so if you have game components or assets that are used across the board, you have to duplicate that information into every bank so the game can always access them.

 

The same concept was eventually brought to the Vectrex, and a few games occupy 64k, which is two banks of 32k storage. John Dondzila's early compilation carts are 64k, and both the recent games from Kristoff Tuts (Vectrexians and Vector Pilot) are 64k, although the second bank of 32k is used for the attract sequences only.

[ComputerSpaceFan]

I can't recall their names right now but I can dig out my Vectrex and get back to you on this.

 

By the way, the game I am thinking of is Rockaroids. It appears in both "All Good Things" as well as "Vecmania".

[BigO]

Possibilities for vector displays in general...probably beyond the realm of possibility, but...

 

If one could directly address the control matrix of an LCD of sufficient resolution and A/D converters of sufficient resolution and speed existed, could existing vector driving electronics be interfaced to modern LCD displays? Beyond that huge A/D speed+resolution hurdle, there'd be the issue of simulating the persistence of phosphor, but that might be an easier one to solve.

 

The same concept could apply to analog raster display driver electronics -> LCD screens. That might allow the original light gun games to work on an LCD.

 

Anyone with too much time and way too much money can feel free to jump right on this.