alt Hacker NewsThis object makes sense to me only if, even if there is a display, which is fundamentally different than tracing line with the CRT raster, at least that original process is simulated. If the lines buffer is rendered just with a line drawing algorithm where the line is uniform, I kinda fail to see the point of emulating an object like that. Sure, still kinda a nice gadget, but... And, the ESP32 inside tells me that it is hardly a physical simulation of the CRT reactive surface and the electrons beam. The point of this device was the way the lines were traced without the help of the main CPU of the device, and in a way where pixels didn't make any sense at all. They are lines at the lower of the levels. Failing to do that in the emulation is kinda betraying the device.
Replies
Yeah they're clearly not targeting people that have played a vectrex in their youth.
The games were nothing to write home about, but the rendering was fun.
You could emulate it with a slow rendering and fade (clear frame with black 99% opacity), but it would have to be perfect. Still, you'd never get the same glow on the drawing point.
I agree totally. Seeing one of the real devices with my own eyes was almost a surreal experience - I almost couldn't believe how good it looked given A) the age and B) the size. Such a neat device
- The lines themselves which are honestly the easiest part to fake if the DPI is high enough, past the point of visual distinction.
- The "bloom" or "glow" (phosphor bleed, or whatever the right term is) around the lines
- The temporal effects caused by the screen phosphor continuing to glow even after the beam no longer hits them. The most obvious example is the "streak" left behind the ultra-bright moving bullets in Asteroids which looks absolutely awesome
I have seen incredible examples of vector/CRT emulation when people get creative with RetroArch (or whatever) GPU powered shaders.The only things that emulation can't match (for me) are input latency and the magic of knowing that the process of creating the image is "real" and not "faked."