Re: Vector resolution

>
> Later games (Definately all the color, it's BattleZone and Red Baron I'm not
> sure of) used an Analog Vector Generator. Esentially this means putting a
> low pass filter across the output of the D/A converters.
>
> You set the end point, set the other end point, and let an analong circuit
> do the work for you.

Actually it's an Integrator for Atari games and a low-pass filter for
Cinematronics games. Because the integrator can drift you need to have
the ability to "reset" back to 0,0 periodically to maintain good
positioning. OTOH the Cinematronics hardware has to extend the lines
beyond the end point to avoid the massive reduction in velocity that
happens at the end of a line drawn using a LPF. Anyway, CineGames all
use about 1024x768 range of the hardware for endpoint coordinates and
no shadow mask for effectively infinite resolution along the line.

Clay, what if MAME had antialiased lines with the surrounding glow and
then used a hi-res (higher than currently available) DMD projector to
obtain the brightness and contrast of a vector monitor :-)

-- 
 ___   __   _   _  _
|   \ /  \ | | | || |       phkahler@oakland.edu     Engineer/Programmer
|  _/| || || |_| || |__     " What makes someone care so much?
|_|  |_||_| \___/ |____)      for things another man can just ignore. " -S.H.
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