
I Hear That Asteroids Machine Calling My Name - erickhill
http://www.insentricity.com/a.cl/261/i-hear-that-asteroids-machine-calling-my-name
======
joezydeco
Jed Margolin is an ex-Atari hardware engineer that wrote an _excellent_
tutorial on how the vector graphics systems worked on classic Atari arcade
titles.

[http://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm](http://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm)

The Vector State Machine mentioned in OP's article was essentially a custom
processor designed out of TTL latches and DACs to draw the vectors faster than
the 6502 main CPU ever could.

It's a great piece of engineering and a close cousin to Apple's _Disk ][
Controller_ that Wozniak designed out of a handful of TTLs and an EPROM.

~~~
mavhc
Thanks for that link, from there I discovered "I, Robot", 1983/4 game I guess
was at least 3 years ahead of its time

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmvWxG2zvs8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmvWxG2zvs8)

~~~
joezydeco
_I, Robot_ was another amazing piece of engineering. A simple 6809 main CPU
and a custom math coprocessor built out of AMD 2901 ALUs.

------
rhizome
What a coincidence, just this morning I was reading the discovery saga of
Atari's _Color Gotcha_ , most probably the first color video game:

[https://edfries.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/fixing-color-
gotcha...](https://edfries.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/fixing-color-gotcha/)

~~~
kalleboo
That's a great story. I continued to read the post on his restoration of a
Computer Space cabinet which was also a good read.

------
gedy
I bought (and still have) an Asteroids Deluxe machine 20 years ago, thinking
at the time "Wow this old retro game is 15 years old!". It's funny how 20
years ago seems like yesterday in comparison...

------
PhasmaFelis
I don't think I've ever played Asteroids in its original form. Do the shots
actually sparkle and flare like that, or is that just a camera artifact?

~~~
nulltype
The vector display seems to have a decay time so there are some trails I think
but not as strong as the picture. I remember the shots being really really
bright on the display, but the camera seems to add a bunch of flare.

Compared to asteroids in a MAME emulator the real display is way different.

~~~
tjl
I think it's because of the shutter. The camera is capturing the image over a
period of time so the photons for those trails will be additive.

It certainly does have that effect, but you're right in that it's not quite
that pronounced.

I spent a lot of time playing Asteroids in the arcade growing up (that and
Tempest). I have a physical problem with my left hand so I found playing a lot
of later arcade games that required a lot of very specific movements of the
joystick difficult so I kept coming back to those two because the left hand
control was basically just a dial.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I found a video with some really good close-ups of gameplay, and it looks like
the sparkle effect may actually be caused by the bright bullets refracting
through tiny scratches in the display, which is fascinating. I've queued up
3:12, and there's a specific shot around 3:16 where the concentric radial glow
is very clear:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w60sfReTsRA&t=3m12s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w60sfReTsRA&t=3m12s)

------
Esau
Good old Atari. I liked Asteroids, but personally, my favorite arcade game
from them was Tempest.

~~~
phjesusthatguy3
I would love to own a Tempest cab but wouldn't want to maintain it.
Fortunately, I have TxK[0] which isn't a good Tempest clone at all but an
amazing game in it's own right.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TxK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TxK)

------
doug1001
i bought one in 1995 played it regularly until i was posted to the UK in 2000
and had to sell it.

the reason the guy only charged me $250 for it was that the fire button didn't
work. i was aware of this but i bought it with the intention to fix it.

After playing it for a few days, i got used to playing without the fire button
and just left it the way it was

to play, you had to crash your ship into the enemy saucers, kamikaze style.

If you're successful, you get the same points (100 for the big slow ones, and
500 for the small, fast ones) as if you had hit them using the fire button.

over the past decade or so, i've played asteroids a few dozen times, where
i've happened to see a machine, but not once have i used the fire button.

