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Asteroids was a vector game, interesting technology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_%28video_game%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_%28video_ga

Asteroids was a vector game, interesting technology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_%28video_game%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_%28video_game%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_monitor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_monitor

mnw21cam 12y ago
Back in '97, I built myself a vector graphics card for a computer which plugged into an oscilloscope for a university project. Good fun. Of course, to persuade the university to let me do it, I described it as a "programmable dual synchronised waveform generator", but it was always intended to display images.
joezydeco 12y ago
Jed Margolin (ex-Atari) has the definitive history of the Atari vector games and how the hardware works: http://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm http://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm http://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm http://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm Asteroids was a humble 6502 running at 1.5 MHz with a PROM-driven pseudo-CPU acting as the vector generator.
kubiiii 12y ago
Better resolution and frames per second than modern games :)
- john-waterwood 12y ago
  Like a plotter, effectively infinite resolution (not really infinite because of the phosphor elements being finite, but still). The limitation shifted elsewhere of course, and that's in the complexity of the scene, specifically the number of objects. Still, interesting tech and can even be adapted to control a laser unit that renders on say a big building or even the clouds (the real ones).
  - rbanffy 12y ago
    Playing Asteroids on a building would be kind of neat. Has anybody tried that?
    - joezydeco 12y ago
      Yup. There were some laser enthusiasts that connected their projection systems to MAME and created Laser MAME. Laser galvo speed is a big factor in making it work effectively but there have been some great demos, like John Knoll (from ILM) playing Atari Star Wars on a theatre screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4REBVgm4Nc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4REBVgm4Nc
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    not really infinite because of the phosphor elements being finite There are other limitations, such as beam deflection imprecision and precision/speed of the A/D converter and the size of the electron beam in relation to it's brightness. Tighten the beam focus to get more precision, but it will be way dimmer and harder for a player to see. Make the beam stronger to compensate and you'll burn a hole in the phosphor. Your costs also go up with the fancier parts and beefier power supply. The Atari system settled on 1024 points of resolution on each axis (but clipped to 1024x768 for the 4:3 monitors used at the time). Still a lot more resolution than the low-res arcade monitors of the day, which were roughly CGA-class (around 320x240).
jgeorge 12y ago
Vector CRTs are all kinds of neat technology. I own a Tempest arcade cabinet, which is a color vector CRT, and it's such a huge difference from using regular raster CRTs.
JohnTHaller 12y ago
It is. It was only 2 colors, but it was high resolution, especially compared to other screens at the time. There's one in my Vectrex sitting near my desk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex
alricb 12y ago
Another use of vector graphics is in older aircraft displays, where the writing and lines would be rendered that way, sometimes with raster scanning for the artificial horizon.

mnw21cam 12y ago

Back in '97, I built myself a vector graphics card for a computer which plugged into an oscilloscope for a university project. Good fun. Of course, to persuade the university to let me do it, I described it as a "programmable dual synchronised waveform generator", but it was always intended to display images.

joezydeco 12y ago

Jed Margolin (ex-Atari) has the definitive history of the Atari vector games and how the hardware works: http://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm http://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm http://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm http://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm Asteroids was a humble 6502 running at 1.5 MHz with a PROM-driven pseudo-CPU acting as the vector generator.

kubiiii 12y ago

Better resolution and frames per second than modern games :)

john-waterwood 12y ago
Like a plotter, effectively infinite resolution (not really infinite because of the phosphor elements being finite, but still). The limitation shifted elsewhere of course, and that's in the complexity of the scene, specifically the number of objects. Still, interesting tech and can even be adapted to control a laser unit that renders on say a big building or even the clouds (the real ones).
- rbanffy 12y ago
  Playing Asteroids on a building would be kind of neat. Has anybody tried that?
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    Yup. There were some laser enthusiasts that connected their projection systems to MAME and created Laser MAME. Laser galvo speed is a big factor in making it work effectively but there have been some great demos, like John Knoll (from ILM) playing Atari Star Wars on a theatre screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4REBVgm4Nc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4REBVgm4Nc
- joezydeco 12y ago
  not really infinite because of the phosphor elements being finite There are other limitations, such as beam deflection imprecision and precision/speed of the A/D converter and the size of the electron beam in relation to it's brightness. Tighten the beam focus to get more precision, but it will be way dimmer and harder for a player to see. Make the beam stronger to compensate and you'll burn a hole in the phosphor. Your costs also go up with the fancier parts and beefier power supply. The Atari system settled on 1024 points of resolution on each axis (but clipped to 1024x768 for the 4:3 monitors used at the time). Still a lot more resolution than the low-res arcade monitors of the day, which were roughly CGA-class (around 320x240).

jgeorge 12y ago

Vector CRTs are all kinds of neat technology. I own a Tempest arcade cabinet, which is a color vector CRT, and it's such a huge difference from using regular raster CRTs.

JohnTHaller 12y ago

It is. It was only 2 colors, but it was high resolution, especially compared to other screens at the time. There's one in my Vectrex sitting near my desk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex

alricb 12y ago

Another use of vector graphics is in older aircraft displays, where the writing and lines would be rendered that way, sometimes with raster scanning for the artificial horizon.