
Recreating the “Asteroids” graphics with a single-beam laser projector [video] - eddyg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkHjG759ABY
======
stefco_
4 Watts! That is a ridiculous amount of power for a project like this. No
wonder the screen is so bright!

For those of you who want another point of comparison for how powerful this
laser is, advanced LIGO detected gravitational waves for the first time in
2015 with an average laser power of only 23W[0] (though we use a lot of tricks
to boost the power of the beam, like Fabry-Perot cavities in the detector
arms).

[0]
[https://www.advancedligo.mit.edu/aug_2016_news.html](https://www.advancedligo.mit.edu/aug_2016_news.html)

------
sehugg
On early pre-production Atari vector games, you could burn a hole in the
phosphor all the way to the glass if you left the electron gun active too long
without moving the beam. They added a "spot killer" circuit that turned the
beam off if you left in place too long.

(From "The Secret Life of XY Monitors":
[http://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm](http://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm))

------
echelon
I did a really crappy version of this in undergrad years ago, also with 4
watts. I also projected pong onto skyscrapers in Atlanta. I have several
videos of this at [http://lasers.io](http://lasers.io)

~~~
i336_
In the pong video
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x034jVB1avs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x034jVB1avs))
I find it absolutely hilarious that you practically just grabbed a random guy
to play it while you filmed.

------
jasonkostempski
I love this guys projects. I have a friend that collects vector graphics
arcade machines and he got me into them a few years ago. I played them plenty
as a kid but never really thought about how they worked before. After learning
about them, one of my first thought was how it was like a laser show but never
followed up to see if anyone had done anything like that. When this video
showed up in my feed last week, I was ecstatic. I'm really hoping to find the
time to dig into doing something like it. I'd love to see a comeback of arcade
machines that are very hardware specific instead of using generic displays and
controls.

------
Animats
Unfortunately, the mirror galvos are much slower than moving an electron beam
around. So he can't do a full Asteroids game. It would be straightforward to
do Asteroids on an analog oscilloscope, but the screen is kind of small.

(4 WATTS of laser power? He's going to burn through his screen if the beam
stops moving.)

~~~
dukoid
Like the most amazing quake port ever? :)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMli33ornEU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMli33ornEU)

~~~
Animats
Cute. They're getting analog output from slow audio D/As, which is why the
graphics are so shaky. The scope is orders of magnitude faster. Here's someone
who used the output from a VGA port, which has megahertz-bandwidth D/As on the
output end. Much better.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfBwz_SiK8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfBwz_SiK8s)

------
tyingq
Not quite as cool as laser beams, but if you have an oscilloscope with an x/y
mode: [https://www.nycresistor.com/2012/09/03/vector-
display/](https://www.nycresistor.com/2012/09/03/vector-display/)

------
Already__Taken
I'll plug Sebs Creative Coding podcast then since the video doesn't seem to
haha.

[http://creativecodingpodcast.com/](http://creativecodingpodcast.com/)

------
M_Grey
This is the real intersection of games and art, for me. I'd love to see it in
person.

------
ejfox
Okay, real talk, where do I get / buy / make one?

~~~
echelon
Try the Photon Lexicon forums. There are lots of knowledgeable people there,
and it's easy to price out a build (or buy a projector).

A lot of us work on open source bindings. (Much of my laser code is in Python
and Rust and is available on Github, linked in my profile.)

------
db48x
Beautiful

