Anyone have a Vectrex Light Pen?

[Megaman Legends]

Anyone have a Vectrex Light Pen? box

 

I do, complete in box. Ever once in a while I take it out and draw some fun stuff with it. I remember that I took a picture when I drew a kind-of galaxy picture with some asteroid floating in space around stars as dots and some other random stuff. The light pen cost my a good lump of cash but in my opinion it's worth it. I personally love this attachment but a little.. more like a lottle to pricey for my taste. All I need is art master an vectrex and light pen and I can be entertained for hours (I have a long attention span)

What do you like drawing with a light pen?

[desiv]

I have a repro light pen, but to be honest I haven't used it too much.

Animaction is fun to play with tho...

 

desiv

[+Darrin9999]

I also have a repro light pen.

[BillyHW]

How did this work?

[gliptitude]

I have the repro light pen and art master and animaction. Have had a lot of fun with it, though it can be quite tedious at times. It's difficult to be precise. Both programs have crazy limitations, but i've actually found the art master animation mode to be more useful than animaction. The stuff i've been doing in art master can't be done in animaction.

 

It would be sweet if somebody developed a new animation cartridge for the vectrex.

[gliptitude]

How did this work?

 

Plugs into player 2 controller port. Used in conjunction with a regular controller in player 1 port. Sensor in tip of the pen detects a cursor on the sceen.

[RedRaider]

It sure would be cool if one of y'all would do a animation and video it, so those of us without a lightpen could see what it's like.

[gliptitude]

It sure would be cool if one of y'all would do a animation and video it, so those of us without a lightpen could see what it's like.

 

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=N6latV2IQ5A

 

There's lots of stuff on youtube.

[BillyHW]

This explains it:

 

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, otherwise the pen won't be triggered.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen

[Megaman Legends]

How did this work?

 

The Lightpen sends a negative edge pulse to "button 4" when it senses a certain intensity of light. The software on the program cartridges places a "crosshair" on the screen or monitors predetermined text menu selections. By aiming the Lightpen at this crosshair it draws a shape similar to a bullseye. As the pen is moved, it crosses the rings of the bullseye and this new position is detected and made to be the new center. In this manner the bullseye crosshair may be dragged across the screen. If it is lost by the Lightpen, it must be "picked up" again. words from: playvectrex.com

[Megaman Legends]

like Art Master over Animaction

[BillyHW]

How did this work?

 

The Lightpen sends a negative edge pulse to "button 4" when it senses a certain intensity of light. The software on the program cartridges places a "crosshair" on the screen or monitors predetermined text menu selections. By aiming the Lightpen at this crosshair it draws a shape similar to a bullseye. As the pen is moved, it crosses the rings of the bullseye and this new position is detected and made to be the new center. In this manner the bullseye crosshair may be dragged across the screen. If it is lost by the Lightpen, it must be "picked up" again. words from: playvectrex.com

 

What was confusing me was how it could possibly detect position on a black screen. But, as stated, there needs to be some sort of non-zero brightness on the screen. Timing must have been pretty precise if it could detect precise position based on the sweep of the electron beam. I wonder how that was calibrated.

[BillyHW]

[ilovethevectrex]

if i win this auction, i will have art master, but i need to get the pen!