vector systems for the '90s?

>(The G-80 system kinda has me re-thinking the RetroVector platform I was
>working on -- I could probably make a new CPU/Sound combo board with a
>G-80 compatible bus interface and get a lot of mileage out of the existing
>G-80 vector hardware... Especially once programming "ground rules" are
>established for how to make sure a game runs on a Wells Gardner color
>monitor without any glitches.)

Why hobble yourself by working on a Z-80 or other ancient pile of junk?
You can get used x86s for just about free these days. Just get a cheap ISA
card with some reasonably fast DACs and you can drive the beam around
almost entirely with software.

Basically you "sample" the beam deflection and color sequence for a shape
and (optionally) transform it. Just imagine drawing Bezier curves on a
vector monitor with smoothly shaded color gradations...oooh, sexy. And you
don't have to put together a hairy development system or anything else;
just run your favorite C compiler.

Plus, with a lot of computing horsepower, you can optimize the display list
to get maximum vector draw (and minimum drive transistor strain) instead of
having to dumbly return to center after everything.

This thought has been kicking around in my head for awhile (back at Atari
we wanted to use a DSP-based sound card to generate the vector shapes) but
I never got around to it.

// grigs
Received on Tue May 6 19:07:39 1997