What If: Color Vector.

[Aswald]

Over the years, there've been a number of what if scenarios: what if Atari had not abandoned the 5200, what if Microsoft had never put out the X-Box, etc.

Recently, I saw an image that suddenly made me wonder what if they had still made color vector games beyond the 1980s into today- would they have looked like this, with curved lines?

http://nisaza.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d1zunfx

Just wondering, really. How far would abandoned things have gone? What could a laserdisc-style game do today?

[Mobius]

I dunno what they would look like, but they would be awesome. I love vector graphics. I wish they were still relevant today.

[Aswald]

Well, given the fact that color vector was around about three decades ago, that image is not at all unreasonable.

[jb143]

I once saw a video of someone who wired a Tempest cabinet into a laser light show X-Y scanner so it would draw the image in green laser light. That was pretty cool.

[Aswald]

I once saw a video of someone who wired a Tempest cabinet into a laser light show X-Y scanner so it would draw the image in green laser light. That was pretty cool.

Can you post a link? That would be incredible!

[jb143]

I might be able to dig it up if it's still around. This was from several years ago and I think was on a laser forum. Before I signed up on here or I'm sure I would have posted a link. I couldn't find it on Youtube but I didn't look tooo hard.

I do remember them saying they had a problem with getting the mirrors to move fast enough. Vector monitors are purely magnetic and can move the beam insanely fast. Laser light shows are mechanical and use mirrors attached to galvanometers which vibrate as current moves through them. The principal is the same but they have just never been fast enough to do something like a vector game until recently.

Edit-
This could have been it, but if it is then I have a bad memory. I didn't remember it beign so flickery and I didn't remember it being on MAME. Still pretty cool though.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3835327867807381175#

[Aswald]

Still looks good- maybe it's the recording causing the flickering here?

How nice it was, walking into an arcade back then. Color vector games around!

[Baloo]

Well, there's always Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, they were both in color.

Did Tempest 2000 have Vector graphics?

[jb143]

Wasn't Tempest 2000 only on the Jaguar and Saturn? In that case, no. They might simulate vector games on non-vector systems but they wouldn't really be vector games. Unless there's some arcade version I'm not aware of.

And I think the spirit of the thread is what would vector games be like if they were still around today.