Asteroids on a Vector

[yotsuya]

I went to Castles'N Coasters today (Phoenix, AZ) and had the opportunity to play Asteroids on an original vector monitor. Man, it was so beautiful seeing the trails on the shots. I wish there were someway to accurately emulate a vector monitor just so I could stare at the game.

[Dawgz Rule]

Try downloading AAE.  I think you will be impressed...

[brad808]

I have to agree I had a dedicated asteroids for a while and mame just can't compete with it. I was actually shocked at how bad it really looks even after using all the different video adjustments it wasn't able to accurately simulate what I was seeing on my vector.

[Gray_Area]

Try downloading AAE.  I think you will be impressed...

Not yet. AAE is great with color vecs, but monochrome is a hard beast to trap.

Yeah, the real thing is beautiful. A few years ago I saw a Tempest up close for the first time since....probably the early to mid 80s. Damn. I don't miss playing right-handed, though....just as I don't miss the rotate buttons on Asteroids.

[alfonzotan]

I went to Castles'N Coasters today (Phoenix, AZ) and had the opportunity to play Asteroids on an original vector monitor. Man, it was so beautiful seeing the trails on the shots. I wish there were someway to accurately emulate a vector monitor just so I could stare at the game.

I'm going to check that place out next week... what's the classic game inventory like?

Sadly, you're dead right about emulation of vectors.  I have a real Asteroids Deluxe, and there just is no comparison... I can't even see the bullets when I try to play it in my MAME cab.

[yotsuya]

I went to Castles'N Coasters today (Phoenix, AZ) and had the opportunity to play Asteroids on an original vector monitor. Man, it was so beautiful seeing the trails on the shots. I wish there were someway to accurately emulate a vector monitor just so I could stare at the game.

I'm going to check that place out next week... what's the classic game inventory like?

Sadly, you're dead right about emulation of vectors.  I have a real Asteroids Deluxe, and there just is no comparison... I can't even see the bullets when I try to play it in my MAME cab.

Off the top of my head:

Upstairs and played fine- Moon Patrol, Asteroids, Joust, Pac-Man (Speed Hack), Ms Pac-Man (Speed Hack), TMNT, The Simpsons, Iron-Man Stewart's Off-Road, Donkey Kong, Galaga, 1942, all the Mortal Kombats, Area 51, some Street Fighter games, Pole Position, Centipede, Defender, Crazy Taxi, Gauntlet Legends
Upstairs and wonky - Centipede, Tron 

Downstairs they have a lot of newer games, fun games like Aliens and Terminator. The pinball is also down there. I played Mideval Madness, Elvis, Terminator, a couple of Pinball 2000 games, Indiana Jones.

You'll have fun.

[alfonzotan]

Cool.  Thanks.

[Gray_Area]

I went to Castles'N Coasters today (Phoenix, AZ) and had the opportunity to play Asteroids on an original vector monitor. Man, it was so beautiful seeing the trails on the shots. I wish there were someway to accurately emulate a vector monitor just so I could stare at the game.

I'm going to check that place out next week... what's the classic game inventory like?

Sadly, you're dead right about emulation of vectors.  I have a real Asteroids Deluxe, and there just is no comparison... I can't even see the bullets when I try to play it in my MAME cab.

AAE is probably best with AD.


You better get over there soon. Castles and Coasters is turning toward Redemption. They sold Circus Voltaire and Theatre of Magic 30 minutes before I got there, a couple weeks ago. Those are two of my favorite tables.

[alfonzotan]

Holy smokes were you right about that Asteroids in C&C.  Went there this afternoon, and that screen is amazing.

Sadly, the Tron in the corner was dead.  Most of the other old games were conversions with generic control panels.  The line of Williams machines was close to stock standard (Robotron has bat joysticks, though), but apparently nobody working there noticed that they needed to hit the "advance" button on Joust, it was stuck at "Factory Settings Restored."  And Moon Patrol had no sound, which made it much less fun to play.

On the other hand, I forgot how much fun it was to play the Pacs with the speedup hack... be adding both of those to my MAME cab ASAP.  But the Pac-Man had either a bad LCD or an oddball flat CRT screen with jagged graphics.  Looks like krep.

Still, fun to play all that stuff again on real or close-to-real hardware.  Now I remember why leaf switches are awesome...

UPDATE:  A few pics...

[Gray_Area]

Ahhh, I think the Joust was that way when I was there, too, and I had to get them to reset it. The sticks on Robotron there are Comps - I get hateful playing that machine, they suck so bad - and the Moon Patrol sound has been out for-ever, but it seems to be the board, and they said their techs don't know what to do on it. The monitor on Pac is an LCD. A year ago, they said they were trying it out.....

Were there still games stashed in the corner, next to Tron?

[alfonzotan]

Ahhh, I think the Joust was that way when I was there, too, and I had to get them to reset it. The sticks on Robotron there are Comps - I get hateful playing that machine, they suck so bad - and the Moon Patrol sound has been out for-ever, but it seems to be the board, and they said their techs don't know what to do on it. The monitor on Pac is an LCD. A year ago, they said they were trying it out.....

Were there still games stashed in the corner, next to Tron?

Yes, but I couldn't tell what any of them were.

They must have a truly sucky video adapter going to the LCD on that Pac-Man.  The screen looks like ass.

[Gray_Area]

They must have a truly sucky video adapter going to the LCD on that Pac-Man.  The screen looks like ass.

It's just an LCD. It's over-bright, with crappy backlighting.