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Vector only MAME cabinet

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ErikRuud:

The Vextrex monitor they used is small and probably easy to use in test set up.

Here are soem the stats on what the device can do:
Drives Wells Gardner, Amplifone, Electrohome G05, Sega G08, and Vectrex X/Y Monitors.


SirPeale:

If you've never played a real vector game there is no comparison between an emulated vector image on a raster monitor, or a real vector image: the vector is clearly superior.  If you have the opportunity to check a real one out, do so.  

Of course, if all you're interested in is beat-em-ups, this will be lost on you.

jerryjanis:

I guess I probably grew up after the vector generation, but when I see Asteroids on a real arcade monitor I nearly lose my cool.  It looks incredible!  The vector monitor must be able to pull some crazy stunts.  The bullets that you shoot shine with an intense brightness.  Even though they're just a dot on the screen, they look like they could do some real damage when they hit their target.  It's an effect that blows me away after seeing nothing but regular monitors for my whole life.

ErikRuud:

Here is a basic(non technical) description of how monitors work.

Raster monitors have a beam(actualy three in the case of color screens) that scans across the screen in horizotals lines from top to bottom.  The beam causes little tiny phosphor dots to glow. By varing the intensity of the beam the brightness of each dot is controlled.  So the entire image is drawn on the screen one dot at a time from top to bottom.

In a Vector monitor the beam (I'm not sure how they do color) can draw anywhere on the screen at any time.  The graphics are created by telling the monitor to draw lines from point A to point B. In some ways it is similar to drawing on an Etch-a-Sketch. Because Vector monitors don't have a grid of phosphor dots, the graphics do not have that pixelated look that raster monitors have.


The big advantage that Vector monitors had in the old days was that they could draw graphics a lot faster than raster monitors did.  For the ship in asteroids, the processor only needed to keep track of the four corners of the ship, as opposed to the 64 or more pixels that it would have required on a raster monitor.

Brad Lee:

Yeah Asteroids on mame on a TV, behind tinted plexi.... Sigh

It is possible thru settings to up the intensity of the images, and to make thicker lines so you can see em, but by the time you get it to where you can see the shots good, the ship is too big and blocky



Also, Im sure the technology has improved, but I recall that the old atari vector monitors were very prone to failing and in some cases even being fire hazards

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