Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/11/29/remember-the-vetrex-videogame.html
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I had a full-sized Vectrex for a few months in (I guess) the late 80s. I just want to point out that the horrendous flicker in this video is an artifact of the video camera. In person, the screen was much better looking. (Edit: Here’s a YouTube video that’s more true to the in-person experience.)
This is a cute gadget, and all, but the original already had a controller that could be clipped tidily into place and a handy carry handle; it was far more transportable than any video game console or home computer that plugged into a TV set was.
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The smoothness and brightness of a vector screen can only truly be experienced in person. I don’t know if it’s been attempted, but a 4k OLED might be able to come close.
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A stillborn little brother.
That picture?
It’s clearly a toaster.
(Very, very sorry. But it does look rather like one.)
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Or frickin’ lasers!
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I sold a mint-in-box Vectrex a couple of years ago for $1200. I don’t know if that was a good price or I was an incredible sucker.
The working one I owned was the third vector display I’d worked with. We had an IBM 2250 graphics display at Brown in the late 60s, and later we microprogrammed an Ards display driven by an Interdata Mod 3 to emulate the IBM display, for a tenth of the cost. The Ards display was based on the Tektronix direct view storage tube, as seen on the first Battlestar Galactica series.
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I remember Vectrex! I never owned one, but one of the bookstores in the local mall (there were two bookstores, and I can’t remember which one… B. Daltons and Vroman’s) had one, and we’d go and wait in line to play a game that was like Asteroid’s but much better because of the controller.
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That’s awesome. The vector graphics medium was so cool, and really superior to the early pixel graphics.
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Looks great! Hard to tell from the video, but turned on its side, the prototype doesn’t look that much smaller than the original. i.e. it’s shorter but wider…
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