Would the Vectrex have changed gaming forever if it had a raster display?

[carlsson]

Now imagine a Vectrex with a two layered screen: a rasterized CRT in the background and the vector display on the foreground, ideally blending together with some nice filter. I suppose this may be a technical impossibility, but it would mostly have made the screen overlays obsolete and really could have changed the world of gaming. Only adding colours to the vectors as in the arcade game whose name I can't recall and won't bother looking up would not have made that much of a difference.

 

But yes, I know this is a well played satire so perhaps best to stay away from trying to be constructive.

[digdugnate]

I think there needs to be a portable vectrex with two screens. You could call it the VDS!

[Osgeld]

I think there needs to be a portable vectrex with two screens. You could call it the VDS!

 

then you could mount it to some goggles and it would be 3d VR rasterex

[Ramses]

These threads have got me thinking. If the Arcadia 2001 came out a year earlier in 1981 and they released Pac-Man with it, could the video game crash have been averted? What if the VC 4000 didn't confuse people with its "cassettes" and they were called carts instead? Would Germany have gained control of the video game market? Would the Colecovision, NES, SMS, even have happened???

Edited September 13, 2018 by Ramses

[phoenixdownita]

Yeah ... pile it on ... if my grandma happened to wear a pair of testicles, would it have made her my grandpa?

[sprazzi]

Can I suggest a "What if" sub-sub-sub-subforum?

 

There was a period in time (early 80's) when EVERYTHING could be possible videogames related

[youxia]

What if Flojomojo has already suggested that?

[Flojomojo]

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/281851-a-what-if-fantasy-island-subforum/

 

Here be dragons ?

[atarilovesyou]

Has anybody got the prototype pics of the Rastrax? I know somebody's gotta have something out there, no way it ain't.

[carlsson]

The first rule of Rastrax Owners Club is you don't talk about Rastrax (or its owners club).

[deepthaw]

wat

people you have rastrax in this universe?

that’s what the landfills were for

don’t tell me you filled them with e.t.

brb going back in time again to fix this all

 

*edit*

 

there, timeline is all fixed. again. but e.t. sucks now. hope you guys are happy.

 

and i might have given steve jobs cancer. sorry.

Edited September 13, 2018 by deepthaw

[atarilovesyou]

The first rule of Rastrax Owners Club is you don't talk about Rastrax (or its owners club).

Now I'm definitely not saying that I don't not have a Rastrax but sure as hellll ain't gonna TELL none o' yall muthatruckas bout it even if I DID...not have one.

[Flojomojo]

This is very clever guerrilla marketing for RASTRAX beats. https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/djras2000/episodes/2017-07-11T11_24_48-07_00

[+x=usr(1536)]

I learned something today.

 

If you put a Rastrax on top of a Vectrex, a quantum paradox is created that rends the fabric of space/time so violently that the entire dimension of existence that they're in is sucked inward until it collapses entirely and cancels itself out.

 

There is now one less dimension out there from which we shall be able to procure the Rastrax. I'm sorry.

[Eltigro]

Dont forget the Jamaican Rastrax clone, the Rasta-rax...

[atarilovesyou]

I learned something today.

 

If you put a Rastrax on top of a Vectrex, a quantum paradox is created that rends the fabric of space/time so violently that the entire dimension of existence that they're in is sucked inward until it collapses entirely and cancels itself out.

 

There is now one less dimension out there from which we shall be able to procure the Rastrax. I'm sorry.

Come on, man...this is too serious a topic to make light of, what with all the manipulations of time and space and all.

 

Rastrax is gonna git ya, no matter how far.

[Newsdee]

The N60 looks like a Minitel... coincidence?

[phoenixdownita]

In this "Rastrax alternative reality" did anyone try finally to cater to the 2 lost senses?

Usually games tackle audio video, with rumble they added a little of tactile (called haptic) feedback .... but still nothing for the senses of smell and taste.

Well to be fair with bitter-gate the Switch kind of went there (if you need to know Nintendo Switch carts are bitter to the taste to avoid people eating them).

 

So in the Rastrax world can I finally smell for 10 minutes non stop the idyllic perfume of burnt gasoline coming out of the exhaust pipes of all the cars I had to sit behind in all the GT incarnations? How about all the burnt rubber of all the skidding? Or some more interesting smell into all those "toxic plant" stages I had to play through in myriads platformers.

If you think smell can get bad, wait until the "Rastrax" shoves into your mouth a spoonful of dust every time you're ... well ... left in the dust or such.

 

There is this

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2302414/Real-smell-o-vision-TV-unveiled-Japanese-team-NOT-April-Fool.html

and if memory servers Philips in the 80s was trying something akin to it.

I wonder if in the Rastrax world it would work like "printers" in that you have to buy the cartridge refill for "burnt rubber" or "exhaust pipes" etc.... let alone if any game gets into attempting to reproduce what this famous incident brought to the table

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_the_neologism_%22santorum%22

(check the External Links section of that Wikipedia article at your own peril)

[Sgt Jack V]

Would Turrican have been good on Rastrax?