Dreams of an Atari vector home game system

[Inky]

If any company could have successfully done a vector game system, it would have been Atari.

 

Think of it.. authentic versions of Asteroids, Battlezone, Tempest, Star Wars, Space Duel, Gravitar, Black Widow and so on. It would have been a killer library back in the day.

 

Then with the power Atari had "back in the day" they could have gotten other companies onboard with their vector titles

 

I am of the thought that Atari should have looked the route of a vector based system instead of some of the other things they were developing, like the mindlink or cosmos.

[gamerz]

If any company could have successfully done a vector game system, it would have been Atari.

 

Think of it.. authentic versions of Asteroids, Battlezone, Tempest, Star Wars, Space Duel, Gravitar, Black Widow and so on. It would have been a killer library back in the day.

 

Then with the power Atari had "back in the day" they could have gotten other companies onboard with their vector titles

 

I am of the thought that Atari should have looked the route of a vector based system instead of some of the other things they were developing, like the mindlink or cosmos.

 

 

I agree 100%, in the arcades they were the King of vector graphics.

[KIWASABI]

If any company could have successfully done a vector game system, it would have been Atari.

 

Think of it.. authentic versions of Asteroids, Battlezone, Tempest, Star Wars, Space Duel, Gravitar, Black Widow and so on. It would have been a killer library back in the day.

 

Then with the power Atari had "back in the day" they could have gotten other companies onboard with their vector titles

 

I am of the thought that Atari should have looked the route of a vector based system instead of some of the other things they were developing, like the mindlink or cosmos.

 

I think had the Vectrex not released at such a bad time (1983, I believe) it could've really taken off. It seemed to be somewhat of a hit until the crash which forced them to stop manufacturing more units.

 

An Atari vector system would be cool though. I assume you would want it to have an authentic vector monitor just like with the Vectrex?

 

-Adam

[Video]

Heck yeah. The Vectrex did poorly cause of bad timing, and it wasn't a big name back then, but had it released a couple of years earlier, with atari's branding, it would havve been huge. Who knows, maybe even a color variant later, and maybe Vector would havve lasted a LOT longer. But thats nevver going to be known now.

[brojamfootball]

This video of the Vectrex(high quality vid!) shows what a fantastic machine it was and how, in many ways, it outclassed the heck out of other systems out at the time:

 

 

Fluid motion, detail, and 3D graphics that were eons beyond what other home systems could do back then. Aside from being monochrome, the 3D on this machine is better and smoother than many early Playstation 3D games. If this thing had been emblazoned with the Atari name and had some Atari arcade games, it would have been huge.

 

Shucks, this vid makes me want a Vectrex still!

[Video]

OH MY GOD!!!!

 

Come to think of it, I never actually played or even seen a vectrex in action. That video was AMAZING!!!

 

Now I have to get one of those, and it was incredible the level of detail and complexity they had on some of those games, amazing 3D, such smooth scrolling. Wow, just wow. And I see from some of te copyright dates, that the system actually came out earlier than I thought. I take it back, all it needed would have been the Atari name, and it would have KILLED.

[Richard H.]

Look at this video from about 50 minutes onwards -

 

http://vimeo.com/3570088

 

A mini Vectrex from QVC anyone ?

[roland p]

Look at this video from about 50 minutes onwards -

 

http://vimeo.com/3570088

 

A mini Vectrex from QVC anyone ?

Nice video. The idea of using a laser to display vector games is so cool

[brojamfootball]

OH MY GOD!!!!

 

Come to think of it, I never actually played or even seen a vectrex in action. That video was AMAZING!!!

 

Now I have to get one of those, and it was incredible the level of detail and complexity they had on some of those games, amazing 3D, such smooth scrolling. Wow, just wow. And I see from some of te copyright dates, that the system actually came out earlier than I thought. I take it back, all it needed would have been the Atari name, and it would have KILLED.

You know it! I saw that vid a while back, saw this thread and figured it would makes some eyes glaze over. If you dig around a bit on youtube, you can see some other videos that show the system had pretty good speech synthesis capabilities as well. If it had genuine Asteroids, Battlezone, etc the system could have owned the market. It certainly looks to have had the power to have good versions of the Atari vector arcade titles. Like I said, it makes me really want a Vectrex.

 

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot. THIS:

 

 

I couldn't find a decent light pen video but you get the idea.

[Godzilla]

heck the vectrex had lasted, maybe we could have had 'atarisoft' ports for the vectrex It would have been wicked to see an atari vector system back in the day, though, gotta agree. especially if it was color. but the displays were major $$ back then...

[Inky]

At least we got MAME now

[Godzilla]

I'm sure I could look this up, but I'm lazy Can mame drive a color vector display with any of the vector roms? IIRC, someone had mame (may also be a modified version,) running bw vector stuff on a modified vectrex...

[Artlover]

I'm sure I could look this up, but I'm lazy Can mame drive a color vector display with any of the vector roms? IIRC, someone had mame (may also be a modified version,) running bw vector stuff on a modified vectrex...

http://www.zektor.com/zvg/index.html

 

Even supports oscilloscopes. Mame on an oscilloscopes, that would be interesting.

[mos6507]

I'm sure I could look this up, but I'm lazy Can mame drive a color vector display with any of the vector roms? IIRC, someone had mame (may also be a modified version,) running bw vector stuff on a modified vectrex...

http://www.zektor.com/zvg/index.html

 

Even supports oscilloscopes. Mame on an oscilloscopes, that would be interesting.

 

That thing still only runs on DOS.

[VectorGamer]

What about that company that wrote a lot of those vector arcade games? I forget their friggin' name...I thought it started with a "C".

[Inky]

What about that company that wrote a lot of those vector arcade games? I forget their friggin' name...I thought it started with a "C".

 

Cinematronics.

 

Sega was another big player in the Vector realm.

[stevefulton]

You know, I bought a Vectrex in the summer if 1983 when I was 13 years old. It was that, or a 5200, but since I already had an Atari 800...

Anyway, it was very cool to have, but to some extent it was much like having MAME now. The games were fashioned just like coin-ops, and they were great at first, but got old fairly quickly since there was no "quarter incentive" to both keep playing, and stop when your pocket ran dry.

 

Anyway, the built-in game Minstorm was awesome, and Armor Attack was brilliant too. Star Castle was not quite up-to-snuff , but it was still fun. However, I can't recall loving any of the rest. I had about 20 games. In fact, I recall some of the games (i.e Hyperchase) seeming like a "stretch" to achieve on the system.

 

I still have it. The controller port stopped working sometime in the late 80's I still have all the games, the unit and a working controller. It I could get the controller port to work again i just might fire-it-up...

 

-Steve

[boog]

The Vectrex is an amazing console. Some of the Vectrex homebrew releases from the last 5 years have shown what a vector system of that era could have done with games like Defender, Gravitar, Space Fury, or Space Invaders. Granted that larger rom sizes and more advanced development tools really help the recent games, but these newer games are still running on the same console. Check out youtube videos of games like Protector/YASI and Gravitrex. (they're available cheap at vectrexcarts.com)

 

I'm pretty sure that they were developing a color Vectrex console when the industry crashed. Probably only a few colors, and probably would have been expensive, but it would have been great.

[ledzep]

Ya, color version, I think a keyboard component, the Crash ruined a great system.

 

But it's not dead yet. Check out Revival Studios, specifically under the "Vectrex" tab on the left. He's made a Vectrex OS (VexOS) and a VexOS Basic compiler for it, too! I would not have guessed you could do all that with that little vector droid but this guy is really gifted.

 

I would say this is the closest we'll ever get to an Atari vector home game system, assuming people could code up the old Atari vector arcade games for it. I guess the obvious question is how hard would it be to convert the code from something like an Asteroids ROM to 6809 and allow for the shortcomings of the Vectrex hardware? I'm kind of surprised that hasn't already happened but I must assume it's way harder to pull off than I imagine. Do code dumps exist for the old Atari vector games like Black Widow and Lunar Lander? Obviously it couldn't be a perfect conversion but so long as the basic scoring/playing logic was there, the basic object shapes, etc...

[Video]

I don't imagine it would be hard at all, the Vectrex is a much newer console than any of those old arcade games. I don't know how powerful it is in relation, but a lot of those arcades, especially the early ones, pretty much maxed out what little available hardware they had.

 

The biggest issue is that Atari still owns a lot of those games. It hasn't stopped people though, I think there's some other games, like a hombrew Battlezone and Space Invaders (that even looks rasterised if that's a word )

 

I'm pretty sure there is an asteroids clone on there too, there's actually quiet a surprisingly large homebrew scene for the little guy.

 

I got a few of the carts, but eh, the console is still elusive, I just can't b ring myself to pay the kind of dough people want for the thing...but I'll be set on games for awhile when I do get one. Oh yeah, and Tempest is on it too, I have that, though I think it's called something else.