Re: Vector generator board for a PC.

> If someone were to design a vector generator card for a PC, what exactly
> should it's design specs be?

A decent embedded processor (10Mhz AVR?) connected to a couple of decent
DACs.

> I suppose it should be able to emulate any known vector generator, such
> as the two Atari versions, the Gremlin/Sega version, and the
> Cinematronics/Vectorbeam version, BUT JUST WHAT DOES THAT ENTAIL?

If you make it generic, it can emulate any instruction type you want.

> I guess what I'm asking is what is the instruction sets for the various
> formats? Where is the line drawn as far as emulation goes? Should the
> board handle mathbox functions (trivial if there's a DSP used)?

Mathbox functions aren't much to worry about. They take so little of a
host CPU's power.

> Should
> the board be able to emulate the entire game (may not be that hard)?

I've been thinking about creating a vector game replacement board - one
that has two micros. A single micro for game logic and another for vector
generation and input controls. You'd be able to program up the vector
micro to act like any vector system you want. It'd also have an AVG and
DVG harness connector on sides of the board so it could be plugged in to
any chassis.

And flash updateable, of course - strong enough to do emulation with a
decently optimized emulator but would be killer for original games. Maybe
an ARM core as the main CPU.

-->Neil

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neil Bradley There'd be no more N'Sync if everyone had guns.
Synthcom Systems, Inc.
ICQ #29402898

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Received on Fri Mar 2 15:40:11 2001