Slashdot Mirror

There's even a card that will allow you to interface your Vectrex with a computer running MAME.

Vector Mame

Because playing vector games on a raster monitor makes Baby Jesus cry.

I dont see how. I'm the proud owner of several Vec's and and have repaired a good many vector display's in my day (well, back in the day).

        Since code is written to "plot" a vector then how could a CRT display this? Thats the whole point of a vector display vs a CRT. One plot's the image in real time, while the other does it line by line. The ion gun on a vector display actually draws the vectors. The CRT builds an image, line by line and then starts all over again.


An o-scope in XY mode is a vector display. It's been a looong time but I've even hard coded circuitry to draw vectors stored in SRAM. Google for lissajous patterns.

An o-scope CRT doesn't work like the CRT in a raster monitor. Modern o-scopes may well sample waveforms and display on a scan-line CRT but the older ones worked just like Vectrex displays. In time base mode, an internal oscillator sweeps the beam horizontally and the input signal causes vertical deflection. Just the thing for viewing electrical waveforms. In XY mode with no signal input, all you see is a dot in the center of the screen. One input channel causes vertical deflection and the other causes horizontal deflection. Most scopes also have an input that can vary the intensity of dot at any given time (or quench it entirely...come to think of it the vectrex has to have that signal as well). If you soldered some shielded leads to the correct places in a Vectrex, it can drive an o-scope that is in XY mode.

Check out the ZVG. This devices connects to an ECP compliant printer port and can be used to drive XY displays. They mention that both o-scopes and Vectrex displays are suitable to be used with their device. There are even versions of MAME that can use one of these devices to play the vector games. You could have arcade Star Wars on one of your Vectrex displays with this thing. It'd be black and white of course and the Vectrex display may not be fast enough to handle all of the vectors it throws out but you would recognize the display.

Zektor Vector Generator (a PCI board that plays vector arcade games through a real vector monitor): http://www.zektor.com/zvg/

Atari 2600 supercart, Colecovision hard drive controller: http://www.widel.com/

(Disclaimer: I co-own and operate GK, so this qualifies as shameless self-promotion)

Yes, Ground Kontrol has all but one of the Blip exhibit's games and about 50 more. Our goal is to present arcade gaming's "greatest hits", spanning the decades, all for .25 a play in a true arcade environment, as originally intended.

At the old-timer 'museum' end of the spectrum, we're refurbishing a 1973 QuadraPong. It's the first cocktail table game and only the third Atari produced. It's so early, the screen is a modified off-the-shelf B&W television!

At the top end, we've got Gauntlet: Dark Legacy and San Francisco Rush: The Rock. And, in the middle, plenty of golden-age (1980-1982) classics. Pinball, too.

We have some big names in the arcade preservation hobby involved, and the place is looking good. If you live anywhere west of the Rockies, please do pay a visit. It's a lot cheaper than driving to NYC. ;-)

The only beef I have with X-Arcade is when people try and play vector games like Asteroids, Tempest, Battle Zone, etc on it's raster monitor. Just not the same!
I might just have to build my own vector only cabinet based on this vector generator and and old Tempest vector monitor

If it's vector games you want, you should check out Vector MAME. As far as I understand, it's a modified version of DOS MAME which will drive a native vector monitor. I saw one of these at CA Extreme this year, but didn't get a chance to look closely.

Vector hackers should check out the Zektor ZVG. They've recently hacked MAME to run all the available vector games through it, but what I'm looking forward to is new software.