Talk:Vectrex

Handheld

Can the Vectrex really be considered Hand-held?

the vectrex is definitely not a handheld (i'll change that), though it was planned to release a handheld based on the vectrex

3D Imager

The section on the 3D Imager currently seems a bit backwards. It starts out with the arcane technical details, and only at the end gets around to explaining what it's actually for. Clayhalliwell 22:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

the nintendo gameboy was released in 1989 so in 1988 the gameboy wasnt even released yet

Comments

The game 'Minestorm' is built in to the console, and shouldn't be considered the 'Best Selling Game' as the sidebar claims as it was not available separately --UniqueCrash5 20:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The reference links seem bad.. can it be replaced with something else?

--Incady September 3, 2006 (UTC)

--I completely agree with UniqueCrash. Minestorm may have actually had the most copies distributed due to being included with the console, but nobody specifically bought 'Minestorm', so this statistic is very misleading. Since the aim of an encyclopedia is not to slavishly fill in data fields, but rather to convey the truth as well as we know it -- I think this 'top-selling' statistic should simply be left off. If you feel you disagree, I ask you to at least consider this. Does the phrase "Top-selling game: Minestorm" convey any accurate and useful information to a reader without inside information? If it doesn't, it should be qualified or it should go. I chose the latter, since I think rewriting it as 'Top-selling game: Minestorm (included)" is still somewhat misleading, since the useful information being conveyed doesn't really have anything to do with sales. The most relevant possible way to use this data field is to find the SECOND top-selling game (i.e. the top seller by TITLE not by inclusion with another product), and to write the field this way: "Top-selling standalone game: K.C. Munchkin" (as a completely irrelevant example). If we don't have this data, better just to delete it. The principle being, if you don't actually know the street directions, you will probably do more harm than good by dispensing sketchy, qualified advice.--70.49.97.108 01:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Analog joysticks were really not that special

On home computers they were quite common. Every Apple II and IBM PC gamer had one. Mind you, on consoles it was a different story, but to portray the inclusion of an analog joystick as forward thinking in some way is misleading. The fact is, analog joysticks were a lot more common in general in the early '80s than they were by the '90s, when consoles had come to the fore and all decided to follow Nintendo's digital lead. So Nintendo itself took this backwards step, and then fixed it themselves a decade later. The reference to home computer joysticks that I added is probably enough to make this basically accurate but it's still a little bit overboard to portray the Vectrex's analog input as innovative for its time. Unusually advanced for a console, would be a better way to characterise it. (I don't mean to cast any doubt on the innovativeness of the system in general, though -- it was quite high.)--65.95.120.116 14:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Brightness control

Wouldn't this:

The Vectrex did not have any luminance control, but rather brightness was adjusted by drawing some lines more frequently than others.

be more accurately said as:

The Vectrex did not have any software luminance control, but rather brightness was adjusted by drawing some lines more frequently than others.

Palpalpalpal 19:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

And this is why wikipedia is the land of the idiots.. The Vectrex uses the same MC1408 DAC to a current to volatage converter (LF347) then to an analog 4-1 encoder, this is fed to to the CRT BEAM, so you can vary the brightness of the beam.. in software by simply programming DAC.. See the schematics, and programming guides.. morons..

"Illusion of color"

Did the overlays provide an "illusion" of color instead of filtering the monitor to display only certain colors? And how did it "reduce" flicker? Did the overlays include extra phosphors to increase the time the lines appeared?Alvis 09:39, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge the overlays were simply (rigid) colored plastic sheets, nothing more. It'd be no different from taking a blue overhead transparency from an art supply store and plopping over the screen of an old black and white TV set. Instead of seeing the picture in shades of grey, you'd have a monochromic picture in shades of blue. It's still strictly a black and white TV set of course, that hasn't and won't change, but you're creating the illusion of a new color.

Interestingly the overlays were kind of like animation cells in a way. You had a plastic transparent sheet that they painted images on the backside in reverse, that would show up on the opposite side. Apart from that the sheet itself was usually dyed just one solid color, but for a few games they'd split dye the sheet in 3 different colors (sometimes in lined patterns) so you'd get interesting effects as passing lines on the screen lit up them up. Web Wars or Scramble come to mind. Created a kind of a psychedelic effect, but for the most part you wouldn't mistake it for a color display (the overlays were *NOT* some sort of RGB pass thru mechanism, if that's what you're asking). Incidentally the painted images and graphics on the sheet did not produce color (apart from the graphic design being color painted), it was the blank areas on the plastic sheet where the light would pass through.

The reduction in flicker came about because the light had to pass through a somewhat heavy sheet of dyed colored plastic. It reduces the intensity of the light passing through, much the same way they used to sell plastic anti-glare overlays for early computer displays (you used to see them on B&W Macintoshes, PC/XT's, 286 and 386 systems; they were transparent but dark tinted, to reduce light and cut down on glare and flicker). Apple2gs (talk) 09:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

CPU

Should it be "1.6 MHz" or "1.5 MHz"? The page contains two different CPU speeds for this console.--Juwayway 20:15, 7 November 2007 (UTC)