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On the Vectrex (1980s vector-graphics home video game console), a game presumably based on Spacewar was Vectrex's Space Wars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X
by neilv 3y ago
On the Vectrex (1980s vector-graphics home video game console), a game presumably based on Spacewar was Vectrex's Space Wars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XakwjZXAdFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XakwjZXAdFk
- SoftTalker 3y agoI remember a very similar game I played on a Tektronix 4051 computer in the late 1970s.
- masswerk 3y agoNotably, Spacewar! is not a vector game, rather, it's X/Y point plotting. Meaning, each point is plotted individually on a high-res 1024 x 1024 screen and has to be refreshed regularly by the program in order to stay visible. (This is also the major bottleneck of the game, in terms of timing, and only became viable thanks to Dan Edwards' just-in-time compiler for the spaceship outlines.) In other words, the burden of maintaining the display is entirely on the program and the instructions for this have to be recomputed for each frame (as memory for storing any screen related information was horribly expensive and thus unfeasible.) Which makes this even more remarkable.
- djmips 3y agoThank you! It's a point plotter! Vectrex is a line plotter. It still has to refresh the entire display every frame however and it's still the bottleneck. That's why arcade games like Asteroids have GPU-like hardware that execute display lists to unburden the CPU from this overhead.