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It's funny that you don't really get an impression of what this is all about on the front page. I don't know what a Vectrex is, and I'm confused. Something wit

It's funny that you don't really get an impression of what this is all about on the front page. I don't know what a Vectrex is, and I'm confused. Something with games I guess.

JKCalhoun 1y ago
Yeah, maybe you're expected to be of a certain age or into retro underdog gaming systems? It was upvoted to the front page so… Yeah, Vectrex was a vector gaming platform (as opposed to bitmap) that came and went in the 80's. Vector arcade games were a kind of niche anyway — like "Asteroids", "Battlezone", "Tempest" and a Star Wars game. But they were also kind of magical. The Vectrex captured that.
- le-mark 1y ago
  I played the vector Star Wars game in a cabinet with a seat and hydraulic actuators way back, I always wondered if those were common or not, I never saw another one.
  - jasonm23 1y ago
    With the actuators... never seen one, and I saw many many of the sit down or the stand up cabinets. First game I saw with merely lean based controls was hang on or space harrier, several years later. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you found a highly custom cabinet, and I'm jealous.
- MomsAVoxell 1y ago
  As someone who grew up with these machines back in the day, there was something very magical about having a Vectrex near ones bed, all the lights off, and being able to play as much “Asteroids”, “Battlezone”, or “Tempest” as one could handle without requiring a bag full of coins for the pleasure. I fondly recall the nights spent this way, waking up at 3am with the Vectrex splash screen still burning its way into my retina. That crazy glow was just so sci-fi for us kids back then. Some of us only had Game & Watch (LCD cells) to play with - the rich kids with their Vectrex were constant subjects of envy among us nerd kids. I was lucky enough to get a microcomputer for one of my teenage birthdays - my rich neighbor had a Vectrex. We both kind of tired of our respective systems and on occasion would swap for the weekend .. it was great to have some actual games to play, and my friend enjoyed learning to program on my Oric-1 (which had a distinct lack of titles, at least in my neck of the woods back then ..)
numpad0 1y ago
Vectrex was an old game console with an integral CRT, famous for the "vector scan" CRT it used. Basically the only new principle involved is that instead of cathode ray beams always scanning on a fixed rectangular pattern, the X and Y deflection amounts were provided by the game to move around the singular dot to desired locations. It's crisp as waving around a laser pointer. Some people like that aesthetics.
- jasonm23 1y ago
  The cult of Tempest says some people are obsessed with that aesthetic.

It's funny that you don't really get an impression of what this is all about on the front page. I don't know what a Vectrex is, and I'm confused. Something with games I guess.

JKCalhoun 1y ago

Yeah, maybe you're expected to be of a certain age or into retro underdog gaming systems? It was upvoted to the front page so… Yeah, Vectrex was a vector gaming platform (as opposed to bitmap) that came and went in the 80's. Vector arcade games were a kind of niche anyway — like "Asteroids", "Battlezone", "Tempest" and a Star Wars game. But they were also kind of magical. The Vectrex captured that.

le-mark 1y ago
I played the vector Star Wars game in a cabinet with a seat and hydraulic actuators way back, I always wondered if those were common or not, I never saw another one.
- jasonm23 1y ago
  With the actuators... never seen one, and I saw many many of the sit down or the stand up cabinets. First game I saw with merely lean based controls was hang on or space harrier, several years later. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you found a highly custom cabinet, and I'm jealous.
MomsAVoxell 1y ago
As someone who grew up with these machines back in the day, there was something very magical about having a Vectrex near ones bed, all the lights off, and being able to play as much “Asteroids”, “Battlezone”, or “Tempest” as one could handle without requiring a bag full of coins for the pleasure. I fondly recall the nights spent this way, waking up at 3am with the Vectrex splash screen still burning its way into my retina. That crazy glow was just so sci-fi for us kids back then. Some of us only had Game & Watch (LCD cells) to play with - the rich kids with their Vectrex were constant subjects of envy among us nerd kids. I was lucky enough to get a microcomputer for one of my teenage birthdays - my rich neighbor had a Vectrex. We both kind of tired of our respective systems and on occasion would swap for the weekend .. it was great to have some actual games to play, and my friend enjoyed learning to program on my Oric-1 (which had a distinct lack of titles, at least in my neck of the woods back then ..)

numpad0 1y ago

Vectrex was an old game console with an integral CRT, famous for the "vector scan" CRT it used. Basically the only new principle involved is that instead of cathode ray beams always scanning on a fixed rectangular pattern, the X and Y deflection amounts were provided by the game to move around the singular dot to desired locations. It's crisp as waving around a laser pointer. Some people like that aesthetics.

jasonm23 1y ago
The cult of Tempest says some people are obsessed with that aesthetic.