And you didn't even mention how that DAC allowed the Vectrex to be probably the first home console with digitized speech. (Eeek! Help! Spike! ... Oh no! Molly!)
Same here. I think what makes this channel unique is the creator's genuine interest and dedication to technology. He can talk about 15 year old tablets in a fashion that keeps me engaged so much, I find myself rewatching it every now and then. Great vids.
Agreed. But an important note on the latter part: the "video game" crash was a North American thing, and largely only affected consoles. Computers and computer games were mostly unaffected. Just figured I'd mention that, as it's often omitted
@@slipknotboy555 Yeah. If anything, the "video game crash" may have been what made PC gaming viable in the US. Up until then, consoles had been so dominant that home computer gaming really hadn't gotten much of a foothold. It's actually kind of interesting, just how *different* the history of 80s gaming is, whether you're looking at the US or Europe.
@@jasonblalock4429 Yeah, britain especially was dominated by cassette tape gaming moreso than the consoles of the day, especially as those could be duplicated by pretty much anyone.
@@jasonblalock4429 yea, and even Japan. Japan was heavily invested into home consoles with very few on the market with the only computer getting some mainstream foothold being the MSX. (not to mention quite a few dedicated machines) Europe had a shit load of computers with giant libraries and even more, often really weird, local and licensed consoles with a tiny library and american consoles. The US on the otherhand was more like Japan, few consoles and even fewer (notable) computers and after the crash getting dominated by Japan and the local market moving to the, at the time, business machines with poor audio and visuals.
This is my most treasured console. And the modern game programmers releasing games for it kick major butt! Amazing how they can draw so much faster (i. e. make more lines run smoothly).
I freaking LOVE this console. It's such an underrated gem. I really want to get my hands on one, and maybe even reverse-engineer one to make an upgraded version.
Man, Vectrex is so cool. My brother had one when I was a kid, so I grew up with the thing, and even back then, it was clear just how special a console this thing was. I collect retro games, and while I absolutely love pretty much anything retro, I have a lot of friends who don't see the appeal. The one exception is Vectrex. I don't think ANYONE can see the Vectrex and not be impressed by it, especially when they hear how old it is! Even by today's standards, it's just... neat! It turns heads, and is just impossible not to be fascinated by. Among retro systems, it is such a huge standout, and anyone who's got one nowadays should hang onto it and take very good care of it, as it's genuinely one of the coolest retro items you can own, and will never NOT be valuable and collectible.
Great video about the technical aspects of the Vectrex, 100 % the right way to go with this giving the content a unique and interesting slant on usual Vectrex coverage. Thanks
Excellent Vectrex video! Except of the "Public Domain" comment. Still not public domain. Jay Smith holds and retains the rights to the Vectrex intellectual property.. But Jay Smith does allow for royalty-free and fee-free software and hardware development. He also allows for the original era games and materials reproduction for sale at a low cost.
I've heard people requesting a Vectrex mini but I would love a Vectrex 2.0. Same size but more powerful and reliable, imagine what could be produced on that monitor! Vector graphics are so cool. Who would buy one?
It's a shame vector displays didn't catch on for some applications, they would be fun to program today. Maybe an obscure go-fund-me vector smart watch?
I met one of those consoles just once in my life in the electronics repair shop of a friend. Regardless it was monochrome at the time I got amazed with the high quality of the graphics on how smooth it looked. I remember my friend explaining to me that it was that smooth because basically they used oscilloscope display technology. It made all sense to me. EDIT: The one I played with was "Asteroids".
I really wish that the Vec had been marketed less as a console and more as a microcomputer. The BASIC that would have come with such a machine would probably have been the most fully-featured graphics environment ever released up to that point.
Sony Watchmans were a thing, the earlier ones had reallu unique CRTs that were very thin. The actual CRT was below the screen instead of behind it, making it much more compact
Sony Watchmans were a thing, the earlier ones had reallu unique CRTs that were very thin. The actual CRT was below the screen instead of behind it, making it much more compact
@@gyroesehni I actually have a couple of those and it didn't really cross my mind when I wrote that. I guess they could have crammed the extra circuitry in there back then if they really tried.
You keep saying that the other home consoles of the era had framebuffers. That's just wrong. They worked with raster patterns, and had pixels and resolutions. But they didn't have framebuffers, which would be regions of memory an entire frame was drawn on. They instead had pretty precise control of what would happen in any scanline, and could manipulate their video generators even during the period a scanline is being drawn on the screen
There's a few emulators for it, mednafen and mess both have a vectrex core. And it works by rasterizing the vector graphics, which is simple, just look at the line tool in MSpaint.
I wish you mentioned the demo rom climax because it really pushes the vectrex to it’s limit by drawing scanlines to simulate raster graphics rather then vector graphics,now while theres a wheel knob to turn the brightness up or down,however as far as i do know, changing the brightness cannot be done trough software, it’s either on or off. Besides, while color crt tv sets can control the brightness individually per color beam, the more more brightness levels it can control, the more colors it can view on screen, i suppose the first color tv’s can only handle a limited amount of levels thus showing not more then 4096 colors onscreen while last gen color crt tv’s could handle waay more brightness levels,thus viewing 16,6 millions of colors atonce,digital tv sets work with colorpallets instead rather then using different voltages.
I am curious, in these days where everything from game graphics to GUIs are going for "minimalism", if vector graphics could make a comeback at all? I guess a vector monitor wouldbe both too expensive and bulky since we'd have no choice but to go backwards from our flat LCD/OLED panels to CRTs again. I wonder, if the tech to stuff a vector beam into the thinness of a modern monitor? (Still a little chunky. Not the paper-thin stuff in phones and roll up TVs of today, more like an $100 LCD monitor.)
I own one of these. Unfortunately the controller no longer works. I've got myself a few games too. I'd get a new controller but I don't really see me playing it and they are quite pricey.
The consoles were quite impressive back in the day, when the programmers had to do ALOT with practically nothing. As compared today when everything including codes are horrendously bloated - and buggier than the bible
I played one Vectrex in a videogame museum once in 2017. I still vividly remember how clean and bright the graphics and screen in the console were. Also, the analog controller and movement of the spaceship on the built-in game was oddly very satisfying. It was one of the coolest pieces of tecnology i ever used. One year later i returned to the museum to discover the same Vectrex stoped working, i could just look at it.
The weird speaker hum that changes as the graphics change is also something I love of the vectrex, iirc something about grounding (or the lack thereof). Will always be my favorite 80s console, suck it nintendo!
Got one at a thrift store a while ago for $10.00. I did'nt really know how popular it was. But learner quickly just how great of a deal I had found, Who knew?
Wow! I have never heard of this console and just watching this RU-vid video makes probably everyone (including me) become impressed by the fact that this can run 3d and run smoothly!
I always wonder how the world would look had technology pursued vector graphics as the primary display technology. Could you get a full colour image on a vector monitor? Dual-beam oscilloscopes exist, so what could you do with 10 or 100 beams? Fun to imagine.
I found one sitting in the trash outside a crack house and it works perfect , guessing the crack heads had no idea what they had as this was 1 year before the pawnshops did start buying retro game systems.
