Vectrex Mini Prototypes Showcased At Gamescom 2025

https://retrododo.com/vectrex-mini-prototypes-showcased-at-gamescom-2025

This mini looks pretty slick, but there's no way it comes with a vector display - surely emulated via LCD.

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2023 Hackaday Supercon Badge: Welcome to the Vectorscope

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Color Vector Display Controller Brings Arcade Classics Back to Life

If you've been reading Hackaday long enough, you've probably come across a few hacks where someone made simple animations or even video games on an analog oscilloscope screen. Those hacks generally use vector graphics, where the cathode ray tube's electron beam directly draws geometric shapes onto the screen. This gives the image a unique look that's quite distinct from the pixel-based raster displays used on TVs and most computer monitors.

Vector displays were also used in several arcade machines of the early 1980s, including classics like Tempest , Gravitar and Star Wars. In order to emulate these games more faithfully than would be possible on a raster monitor, [Robin Champion] designed the vstcm: a color vector monitor controller to easily drive RGB vector monitors.

The design is based on [Trammell Hudson] and [Adelle Lin]'s v.st system, and therefore features a Teensy microcontroller as well as a couple of digital-to-analog converters. While the v.st can only connect to monochrome X/Y systems like oscilloscopes, the vstcm can work with RGB monitors to allow near-perfect emulation of color vector-based games. A custom software interface connects the vstcm to AdvanceMAME, a special version of the well-known arcade emulator that facilitates the connection of unusual display systems.

The end result definitely looks the part, although [Robin] notes that performance is not at the level it could be and requests those familiar with the Teensy platform to help optimize the code. If you'd like to build the vstcm but can't find a vector monitor, you can always modify the yoke of a conventional CRT. Want to learn more about vector displays? Check out this thorough introduction.

#classichacks #arcademonitor #mame #vectordisplay

A Laser Display Board Of Your Very Own

There are some times when an awesome project comes into your feed, but a language barrier intervenes as you try to follow its creator's description. [Kanti Sharma]'s laser display appears to be a fantastic piece of work, but YouTube's automatic translations in the video below make so little sense as to leave us Anglophones none the wiser as to what he's saying. The principle comes across without need for translation though: he's taken a laser diode module and is using it to create a vector scan by mounting it in the middle of a set of coils driven through beefy FETs by an Arduino. It's an electromagnetic take on the same principle used in a CRT vector displays such as the famous Vectrex console, with the beam of electrons replaced with laser light.

It's a technique not unlike what's been used for years in the lighting industry, in which much larger laser displays are created with mirrors mounted on galvanometers. There must be a physical limit at which the weight of the laser slows down the movement, but if the video is to be believed it's certainly capable of displaying graphics on a screen.

People have done a lot of things with lasers on these pages, but there have been surprisingly few vector displays using them. Here's one from nearly a decade ago.

#laserhacks #laser #laserdisplay #vectordisplay