Mini arcade cabinet builds are fairly common, but we’ve never seen anything like [Jurgen]’s mini vector Asteroids cabinet that takes an original Asteroids circuit board and a true vector monitor and shrinks it down to table top size.
Unlike the raster monitors of a later generation’s arcade games, the original Asteroids cabinet used a vector monitor just like one would find in an oscilloscope. [Jurgen] found the perfect CRT in, of all places, a broken Vectrex console. The video circuitry in the Vectrex was rather primitive and the beam deflection was far too slow for the video signals generated by the Asteroids PCB. To get around this, [Jurgen] added a custom XY driver board. While the Asteroids game – and other vector Atari games – were designed for a screen with 1 MHz of bandwidth, [Jurgen] found that 300 kHz was ‘good enough’ to display proper Asteroids graphics.
While the cabinet isn’t a miniaturized version of any proper cabinet, [Jurgen] did manage to build a rather nice looking case for his luggable version of Asteroids. The exposed PCB on the back is a great touch, and an awesome project for any ancient video game aficionado.
300 kHz bandwidth, not 300 MHz, was deemed ‘good enough’.
I think you mean “300 KHz” rather than MHz!
Beautiful project. Quite impressive.
I demand a video!
That’s because a vectrex isn’t a “real” vector display. It’s a regular tv tube, magnetically scanned so a long way off being the perfect CRT for the job ;)
FWIW Vectrex was a hack job in the end. Originally it was meant to have 5″ CRT but Milton Bradley wanted bigger so the dev shoehorned a 9″ CRT in without doing much change in the supporting hardware. As a result, the dual op amp that controls the deflection yoke is prone to burning out and there’s no suitable replacement today for that dual op amp chip.
Neat mini arcade work, especially with original mainboard. I have an iCade that I got for only $15 new (blowout sale from Khol’s, 90% off regular price, they are long gone so don’t ask me to get some) that I might convert to something like this. I loved Tempest but it’d be tricky to get a proper color CRT for that. Maybe I’d try for original Star Wars arcade game in monochrome?
That chip *can* burn out, but I wouldn’t say it’s “prone” to doing so; the usual fault is failing caps (the hardware *is* 30 years old after all.) And Milton Bradley acquired GCE after the Vectrex had already been released, they were not involved in it’s design.
I never much cared for Asteroids but Tempest was a wild game.
I wouldn’t say that the Vectrex monitor is not a “real” vector monitor. All vector arcade machines used regular CRTs with magnetic deflection, just like the Vectrex. The Vectrex has a regular video CRT, but with custom deflection coils to enable the same slew rate for X and Y, just like the big arcade machines. It just skimps on the deflection driver (amplifier), which is essentially a stereo audio amp with much lower speed.
Glad you folks like my Asteroids mini build!
That’s great information!
I wonder if this deflection board would fix the Vectrex wobbly screen issue?
[Jurgen] noted some minor wobble in his build, so probably not. He speculated it was caused by the difference between the 50hz powerline and 60hz refresh rate. I’d first see if it’s a magnetic field being thrown by the Vectrex transformer he reused, and picked up by the monitor – which I’d assume would be worse in a complete Vectrex due to closer proximity, at refresh rates other than powerline frequency.
I wonder if the issues I’ve seen on vectrexs is an under rated transformer with a collapsing magnetic field?
Well built and documented. I like it.
I explored his server and saw he is (or was) working on a scanning tunneling microscope as well.
They never got to the bottom of why the sequel to Asteroids, a sit down version of the game called Hemerhoids was panned.
Finally! One of these miniaturized cabs, actually using the original PCBs! :D
And of course, it just wouldn’t be the same without a real vector CRT, so kudos on that, too!
Cool, except for the destruction of an Asteroids and Vectrex
Nothing was destroyed. Bare arcade PCBs are *far* more easily available than complete arcade cabinets — they are easier to store, you know? And the Vectrex used here had a broken game (microprocessor) board which was beyond repair, and was missing the controller.
Of course, lacking a Vectrex monitor, an old TV can be used with a little more effort :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMicXIlprQs
Way to go! Congratulations on completing this monitor conversion, with very nice results indeed. And a very nice series of videos documenting your project, too! Glad to see that my deflection driver worked for you.