fundamental vector hardware (software?) question

[Frostillicus]

Ok so I was in a boardwalk arcade over the weekend and happened upon Asterioids - the original one.  

Heres my question: The little blips the thrust-ship fires were soooo bright and brilliant - is that a result of using an actual arcade monitor or is the hardware itself?  The asteroids and ship themselves were fairly bright, but nothing like the blinding white blips that flew from the ship.  They looked like the little white dot from my old black and white TV set after I turned it off - you know the little spot in the middle?

I'm guessing this 'brilliance' comes from the hardware itself and cannot be emulated(I realize MAME is not perfect, but it's close! )  Kind of looked like an oscilloscope in it's sharpness and brilliance, only white not green. I don't have an arcade montitor, and asteroids didn't look that great on my PC or on  my TV set (I have ATI radeon with tv-out).  

Thanks for any insight!

[Todd H]

Yep, the look comes from the hardware.  Vector games use a vector monitor, which instead of displaying dots displays bright lines.  About the closest you'll get to emulating this look is using a high resolution computer monitor.  Using my 19-inch PC monitor, I find MAME does a pretty good job emulating the look of vector games.

[SirPoonga]

Yes, it is that bright because of the hardware.  My uncle has asteroids.  We play that in the dark!

[Frostillicus]

I figured it was hardware related.  Thanks for the info.  

Todd:  I have a 21" monitor but cannot replicate the really bright light that is shot out - probably because as you say it's not a vector monitor, so it's impossible to emulate that fully.

SirPoonga:  Man I'm jealous.  You are one lucky dude  

[)p(]

I figured it was hardware related.