This Game Console Has No Pixels
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- čas přidán 26. 06. 2023
- ** PHOTOSENSITIVITY WARNING **
Straight lines never looked so good!
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"if it has a screen, it can play bad apple" prevails once again
Somewhere on the internet there is a video of someone playing bad apple on task manager. Amazing.
czcams.com/video/r-axdVfM0c0/video.html
some madlad played bad apple on a lot of different things, including google maps, and the windows file manager
And if it has a screen it can play DOOM
I was looking for this comment lol
If it has a screen THE LORAX (2012) can be seen!
this is probably the most retro looking thing ive ever seen in my life
That or top loading woodgrain vhs recorders
SO.
RETRO.
it's like actual oscillograph redesigned to do videogames
@@littleawesomeapplepibby bluey ohio bowser fart peppino chungus mogus reddit gold
@@SurmenianSoldierSO.
META.
I think the point of Vectrex is to really bring the arcade gaming at home for cheap. They succeeded and it was lauded at the time of its release. Too bad the video game crash happened and destroy any hope of Vectrex of making it big
Honestly, it would be amazing to see it return as a nostalgia system with vector graphics still being a thing
The opposite of the NeoGeo
that might be the case...if it didnt cost $200 brand new back in 82. which is about 750$ in todays money. this was nowhere near cheap, but it was damn sure built like it.
That video game crash caused my first Vectrex to only cost $69 AUD. Thank you Warner for over producing E.T. 😂
@@MTB_MICK heh, nice.
Spike looks like a weird flash game, like... 20 years ahead of it's time. Good shit.
It even had rudimentary 3d, which is kinda nuts for the time period
It’s cute
It's basically Vector Kong, making use of the easy scaling and rotation to show off simple 3D.
@@charliekahn4205 i bet some linear algebra was used to model the angled perspective of the tiles
Ive done math stuff like linear translations of vectors in commissions for art before
My (much) older cousin had a vectrex, which got left at our grandparents. I remember playing this for hours, even with a SNES, Game Boy or Mega Drive usually on hand, I still wanted to play this. It was just really fascinating.... And there was only one controller so my other cousins could do one.
This was pretty much my experience, only my younger cousin had one.
i played a vectrex in the mid 90s when it was already ancient and was blown away.
it looks better than NES/SNES in some strange way, probably because of the screen covers.. not even the most advanced modern experimental displays from samsung, etc have actual physical pigments to color the light, just LED pixels.
the idea that modern graphics are "better" completely ignores the unique experience something like this gives. This thing looks amazing
Vector graphics really "stick out" in a way you can't really describe. I love it
The only idea this gives me is, how would a system using vector graphics look like today, using modern technology? There are a couple that use vector graphics and they look great, but don't run well because the hardware isn't laid out for it
@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5no
Vectors are still used in games to this day, what an ignorant comment. The vectrex still helped progress video game technology.
@@prawngravy18Videogames use rasterized vector graphics.
And low percision rounding.
and rounded floating point.
and a whole buch of other things that just serve to estimate what direct vector display can do natively, and we just ignore when anti-alising overhead gets too high and pixels pop up, because that was a choice that has to be made when your dealing with hardware made for raster graphic displays. And all modern displays are raster.
Society made a choice, and its fine that we did. But you will never see the crisp curves of the origonal video games they will always be rasterized, but they will be 10% more accruate and thats not nothing especially in video games.
I love that "the colour" is just a plastic colour filter specific to each game, kinda reminds me of a book I had as a child where you could mix and match different plastic colour filters to make different colours
It reminds me of some LCD handheld games that had a monochrome LCD and a little door on the back to let the sunlight in as backlight, because the color layer made it so dark you couldn't see on reflective mode alone, but it made some of the few in-LCD sprites have different colours. Also Pong and clones. There were TV overlays to make it a new, totally not Pong game except it's Pong.
Overlays were weirdly common even up to the mid 90s. There's a version of DOOM, I think for the 3DO, where there's an overlay for the 0-9 keypad on the controller and each number lets you directly pick a weapon instead of cycling through them.
That was how they had "color" on the original Space Invaders arcade games. They just put colored cellophane tape over parts of the screen.
@@aortaplatinumThe Jaguar was the only console of that time that had a keypad so was likely for that system, that was a common thing for games that made use of the number pad. Doom used it purely for weapon switching if I remember correctly. Studio Doom is interesting but for an entirely different set of reasons.
@@chrisfratz Ah yeah it was the Jaguar version! 3DO was the really awful one that was ported super fast by one woman and was gonna have live action FMV cutscenes
True story - I saw a Vectrex and a box full of games in a shop the day before my wedding for $150. My head was elsewhere so I didn’t buy it. The day after I went OH NO WHAT A MISTAKE and went back… but they still had it! And so do I 20 years later.
Imagine that you accidentally say "OH NO WHAT A MISTAKE" in front of your partner the day after you got married 😓
@@ruben_balea Thankfully she knows I'm a gamer and wouldn't make the wrong assumption. In fact she drove me over to the shop to see if it was still there too. ^_^
Wait, you went back ON YOUR WEDDING DAY to buy the Vectrex? Nice!
@@MrMegaManFanShe’s a keeper.
@ruben_balea he said he saw a Vectrex the day BEFORE their wedding, and then yelled "OH NO WHAT A MISTAKE" the day AFTER the day before their wedding and went to go get it. It is my personal head cannon that mid-wedding they shouted "OH NO, WHAT A MISTAKE" and then sprinted to their car, drove to gamestop, and bought a vectrex.
I knew about the Vectrex (and even the electrical interference you can hear over the built in speakers) from an old AVGN episode, but I had NO IDEA that the homebrew scene was so active on the system. That's NUTS!!! Thank you for sharing, James!!
From one James to another
Even cooler is the there's a simple mod you can perform with a kit that completely gets rid of the audible interference that you can hear from the speakers. I think it's called The vectrex buzzkill.
From a AVGN episode? Oh yeah, now I know, the one where he reviewed some Star Trek games
While it absolutely makes sense that the tech industry adopted raster graphics as the standard, considering just how versatile they are, there is quite the charm to old vector games. It’s a style I wish some smaller-budget indie titles or something would revive.
DEFCON Everybody Dies has a great visual style.
One game that kind of did that was a rhythm game for the PS1 called Vib-Ribbon. And it looks really good if not I've been pixelated because of the resolution, but if you run the game out of modern resolution via emulation the lines look really crisp.
@@chrisfratz Yes! I’m familiar! Amazing looking game. Such a weird and unique PS1 title.
Now that You say it there will be a explosion of thoses games
Nobody makes vector monitors anymore, so that's impossible right now.
Can't say I'm surprised to see bad apple a few seconds after James mentioned homebrew
I love how seeing old tech used creative approaches to its problems. Really makes the phrase "limitation breeds creativity" ring true.
Eh. That saying is somewhat of a misnomer. I mean certainly it breeds creativity but its creativity focused on surpassing the limitations with tricks rather than anything else. For example its how you get games that have nothing going for them except the fact they surpassed some limitation, like donkey kong country
@@DimT670 Yeah, but sometimes you get games built around clever gimmicks brought about by limitations
@@DimT670 how does Donkey Kong Country have nothing going for it
@@aydenrw2719 try to look at it objectively as a work vs as a technical achievement
Yes it did something that was amazing at the time graphically , but thats it. Its indistinguishable from any other game of the time otherwise
Somehow seeing Bad Apple on a Vectrex was so unexpected but also the most expected thing I can imagine
Great video James, feels like a classic youtube video, just a guy showing off some of the cool stuff he has. The cats are a nice touch too.
The Vectrex was a masterpiece. If the timing was slightly different, this would have been big.
This is the coolest shit. It’s such a unique console due to its monitor, and it leads the graphics to age a lot more gracefully than its contemporaries. It’s wild to think the 2600 was on the shelf at the same time as this.
Yeah vector graphics were way ahead for a little while there
Fun fact: When color TV was being invented, one of the systems being considered, developed by CBS, actually used a really similar mechanical color wheel. Luckily the fully electronic color TV system by RCA won out because it had no moving parts and was backwards compatible with B&W signals (CBS and RCA/NBC are still major TV broadcasters in the USA).
The cat is a gracious owner, letting James borrow the vectrex like that
I grew up with this as one of my first gaming experiences in the *90s*. My parents didn't want us to have a SNES or Genesis at home, but my grandparents had a summer place where they kept one of these with like 20 games. My whole family got addicted to Minestorm for a while and it was a bit of an ongoing competition to see who could get to the highest level. Not sure what happened to the thing, but I really hope it didn't get thrown away.
My whole family played Warlords when I was a kid, that was fun as hell.
James you are a natural! Quickly becoming a channel i drop everything to watch. Every one has been more fascinating than the last and i can tell youre really settling into your own style
Everytime an Australian starts talking, I'm like, Oh yeah, this guy. Then I realize it's probably never been the same guy.
My brother had a Vectrex when I was growing up, and I frigging LOVED that thing. Played the hell out of it! I don't think it's possible to play a Vectrex and NOT love it, really. It genuinely feels impressive and futuristic even in the modern day -- and I remember just how mindblowing it was back in the '80s! It feels like something that was too cool to actually exist -- like an element from an alternate universe that somehow slipped into ours and went unnoticed. ;)
Retro game collectors will often be disappointed when they finally get their hands on whatever grail du jour they may be chasing (I speak from experience on that!), but the Vectrex is one of those things that I don't think you can possibly be disappointed with. Provided your system is functional, you're going to enjoy it -- it's almost impossible not to!
definitely a footnote and/or novelty in videogame history. Rocking the Tate screen arcade machines were known for. Back then home consoles were all about bringing arcade score attack games to your television, so this stuff was par for the course.
I remember having on of these in the house back in 1990. I was 4 years old. I remember waking up from a nightmare in the middle of the night so my mum made me a bowl of cereal and we played Vectrex until I fell back asleep. She was such a wonderful lady.
You can get kits to mod out the buzz, too, if that bothers you.
The machine has the audio stuff situated right up by the tube, so I think the kits are like a replacement amp you stick somewhere better. Don’t quote me. I’ve never had one.
but then it won't be an original 😢
@@Juanus14 you’re adding a module and unplugging a thing. A reversible fix
It’s a matter of whether the horrific buzzing caused by a bad design bothers you. You aren’t breaking anything
So happy to see Jamie into weekly video club. Don't stop, you're making every week perfect mate
That homebrew stuff amazing, seeing a video about the Vectrex makes me nostalgic for old CZcams (Norm, The Gaming Historian!) and it's so heartwarming to see another generation learn about it.
Did not expect a wild cTrix appearance! So damn cool.
That homebrew game looks amazing. Shows how much passion is still in these old systems.
Vector graphics are just fascinating man
I bought one as a xmas pressie for my wife (her childhood console) and it's amazing. So glad to see you covering it!
I was super into these in the mid 2000’s-2010’s Still haven’t got one! They go for insane money even here in the states. The home brew stuff reignited the spark every now and then. Such a rad little unit.
Genuinely didn’t expect to see one again, let alone on your channel. Awesome stuff!!
it looks very sick, can't imagine how cool it is when it's not flickering like crazy.
6:14 and of course the mandatory bad apple is cool as well
At my first tech job 11 years ago, one of the dev engineers had brought their vectrex into the office and set it up in the lobby. They didn't have any of the interesting games for it, though.
Id argue the video game crash should be called the AMERICAN video game crash as it basically only happened in america. In places like Europe and japan it wasn't really a thing
These things look really great in person. The lines are so bright and clear.
Yes, watching videos of it can’t do it justice
I have a Star Castle arcade machine at home. Great, underrated Vectrex game! Thanks for covering this, James!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I've come across a couple arcade cabinets that do this. The phosphorescent glow of them is absolutely magical.
Yeah they’re really incredible to play. You have to see it in person
Hands down the loudest speakers in the business. My dad had one of these bad boys when I was little, they rule.
The story of people picking up cheap Vectrexes after the video game crash is how my mom got her first console: the Atari 5200. I actually got it to somewhat work a few years ago, though naturally the controllers were borked. I tried selling it to a local retro game store but they said they had a surplus of 5200 games and consoles (insert "can you believe nobody bought this"). I kept telling myself I'd find an enthusiast to sell to on Ebay but it just ended up taking space in my tiny apartment and I decided to send it off to the landfill.
Vectorblade looks to be a fan port/interpretation of Warblade, a game from the early 2000s. I love that game and it was cool to see something like that here
Vector console and cabinets are so interesting. I love the vector Star Wars game Atari did in 83. Honestly thought it looked really good. Considering the fact that you could probably at the time make things look better in vector style than using pixels. You get a cockpit view and you can make out what everything is like tie fighters and X-Wings etc. it even though it has a wireframe look. First saw this console on an old AVGN video. Would love to try one of these consoles out just to see how it looks and plays.
Holy crow. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that James has a Vectrex, but I have literally never seen one.
what a cool piece of tech!
I had read about the vectrex and the 3D imager before, but seeing actual games for it is pretty cool
(i feel like space war was probably an inspiration for the steamworks example game spacewar)
Even more than that, it was actually based off the game Spacewar! for the PDP-1, which is from 1962 and one of the most significant video games of all time!
@@lotto77102 Ooh! Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
By 1984, I had an hand-held version of the Vectrex, with few games preloaded in ROM.
Vector graphics were the beginning of videogames, run on microprocessors which hadn't the capability to regenerate a matrix of pixels 60 times per second. Every vector line had a simple equation with a length and angular coefficient, two numbers which only required two or three bites of memory - hundreds of time less than a corresponding matrix.
Thanks for the video...
Have you seen that high-speed camera footage of one of these drawing a frame? It's nuts.
i hope vector graphics for games/systems become popular again, it looks so unique compared to modern artstyles, and due to being so old and underdeveloped it probably has much room for improvement i feel like would be interesting to see
I mean, technically most modern 3D games use vector graphics, only translated to a raster screen and with textures.
vector graphics are very popular today - much more than in the past.
they are used for icons and for text everywhere.
that's how icons and text stay very crisp at very high zoom levels.
@@sosasees i know that but "for games", fully vector graphic game or game system
I knew about the vectrex because of Classic Game Room from back in the day, and this video gives me the vibes of a classic video of them back in the late 2000s and early 2010s it feels really nostalgic for me seeing a vectrex in a CZcams video
I really wanted to hear Wade yelling when you brought out the two player game.
What a crazy awesome system, I had no idea that tech existed!
3:19 vibri right there!
Been enamored with this thing every since I saw it in a bunch of Classic Game Room episodes back in the day. Finally got one for myself from a now-defunct local retro games store for something like 250 bucks along with a Solar Quest cart. Nowadays, it's the centerpiece of my bedroom (besides my custom gaming rig XD clashing of eras there). Hope to get into properly collecting for it some day, but oof those prices lol
Fucking love the Vectrex, that 3D imaging headset for it looks bonkers! Very glad you mentioned it, its basically a museum piece now!
Your collection is so rad! I can't wait to see more of it
I bought a vectrex recently for 400 bucks as a guy local to me was selling one that came with a very good condition controller and 2 games. He seemed sad to see it go but he was happy I appreciated and knew its worth and boy do I. Its probably now the crown jewel of my collection and man does it look and play really nice. Especially when your playing it in a dark room the lines on the screen glow. It looks like something from tron. Its also nice showing it to none game collecting enthusiasts because they all are very intrigued by it and enjoy it also. Such a cool system if anyone else is on the fence about getting one do it absolutely fun system and you will get your moneys worth out of it alone for the reactions you will get and overal its a very fun system to actually play.
I can’t agree more!
My local laundromat didn't have an arcade cabinet like a lot of them did. They had 2 very weird choices instead: a Vectrex that did _not_ work, and an 80s touchscreen video chess game that had a similar design to the Vectrex but a little bigger.
I really wish I had a Vectrex experience under my belt, but I feel like I probably never will if I haven't by now.
You’ve single-handedly unlocked core memories I did not know I had, thank you hahaha
Good lord you brought back my childhood. This was the only console in our family growing up and it was my mom's childhood console. Even though it was dated there was just a charm to the whole thing. I spent hours in front of it just playing and perfecting my skills at the games we had. I miss that old thing.
6:53 I used to have an arcade cabinet that had a fighter jet sort of game where you could do similar things. Upgrading the ship, getting little power ups here and there. I think it was called 1987 or something like that. Anyway, this thing looks like an absolute blast. I have surprisingly never heard of these until now so thank you for sharing!
My cousin had one of these and I was so fascinated by it. Web Warp freaked me out as a kid.
Edit: For those that think it was a typo, WebWars was also known as WebWarp in some regions.
Went to an arcade about a year ago and saw one of these. Forgot what it was called and it’s been bugging me ever since. This is great!
Always a good day when James uploads. You showcasing interesting/ unique game consoles has really got me interested in old game stuff. Keep it up 👍
This got to be the most underrated console ever, you basically can't get the same experience from the Vectrex anywhere else
So fun watching this! My brother actually got a Vectrex I guess some 30 years ago or something, and he actually have the light pen along with the Art Master cartridge, where you can do your own drawings and animations by simply moving the vector end point and saving as next image. 😊
Vectrex was AWESOME, so jealous you have such a complete set.
It's so good to see someone else who loves this chunky boy it is legit one of my favorite things I own.
Got one of these as young fella well after they came out, I think around the SNES/Megadrive era and still thought it was the coolest thing ever. Didn’t get the neat screen covers for colour but I still played the heck out of Hyper Chase.
Had absolutely no idea about the home brew scene for it, amazes me what people do with older tech 👍
My cousins owned one of these, and it was actually very fun, even a decade or so after it was made. Space wars was always fun playing against each other. It was always an interesting, unique, self-contained system.
My dad told me about how the Vectrex was his first console, He also said that it's probably still in his parent's basement. So I wanted to look, and it was right where dad said it would be. I took it home and gave it a thorough clean, and to my surprise it still worked after all those years. It was a neat concept though. Too bad it got abandoned a couple years later.
About 4 months ago I played Astroids in a retro arcade for the first time. Something about the crispness of CRT made it one of my favorite screens of retro even with no color.
6:14 one of the most important things I’ve learned on the internet is that anything with 2 colors will inevitably be used to play Bad Apple.
It's almost criminal this thing didn't have Tempest or similar on it, the game I always think of when I'm thinking of vector graphics
I picked up one of these at a local antique store back in 2014 and love the hell out of it
James, you have the power to become the next Classic Game Room. Keep going legend.
6:14 a man of culture, I see.
looks cool, kinda like if a tv had neon lights on the screen
A pal of mine a couple of years back (2021-ish, I think) found one of these in box with her dad while doing a dumpster dive, needless to say she took it home, cleaned it up, and it was in near-mint condition, with 3 games. Who would throw something like this away?! I still have photos that she sent me, somewhere...
The Vectrex is such a wild machine and I really hope I can give one a go some day... Now seen a few videos on this remarkable piece of tech, and a lot of new info here!
Always love your lean editing and scripts as well as the Cat-Says-Goodbye bits! :)
I've loved the Vectrex ever since ashens made a video about it 11 years ago, this console would be massively popular if it was released today as a Kickstarter project
Loving you having your own channel man! Enjoying all the vids you’re putting out, although it’s making me want to restart video game hoarding which is quite dangerous 😂
Here in Canada by 1984 Eaton's (which was a higher end department store kinda like Myer in Australia, not a low end liquidation place) was blowing these out for around 70 dollars (for reference the Canadian MSRP was around 250 dollars), and the games for something like 7 dollars each or 4 for 20. I think they even had a one-time deal where you could buy every game in one lot for like 60 or 70 dollars. You probably could get one even cheaper at computer fairs and the like.
Having its own screen and not tying up the TV would be an actual selling point, back when a lot of people only had one TV.
My grandparents have a Vectrex that I've been trying to get off them for years, I love the damn thing
Weird evolutionary offshoot, killed off before it could be iterated on. Obviously this thing has significant limitations, but so did everything back then. I'm happy to hear there's a homebrew scene for it.
What an interesting piece of hardware, it seems really good for a home console at the time. Also, that Dreamcast controller in the background caught my eyes, what did you do with it?
It's always fun to see this weirdo device on CZcams. This was the last video game console I owned! I used it for animation and music more than for gaming. I was tiring of video games at that point. I think my brother still has the Vectrex stashed somewhere.
HOW DANG MUCH COOL STUFF DO YOU HAVE, WHAT THE HELL. A video on that PSX or the CD-I would be cool.
james always has the coolest stuff just stacked in his room! and of course they put bad apple on it, guess that's just what happens when something struggles to run doom.
I recently found a 30 year old vectrex in my attic that was my dads. Plugged it in and it came to life instantly. There was also a VR headset 3D viewer that I had too. Such a noisy but good console.
Look after that 3d imager, those are valuable
@@Games_for_James alr
Man I've wanted one of these ever since I first read about it way back in the day, it might have been featured in a gaming magazine? I don't remember. But the fact that it has a friggin' HOMEBREW COMMUNITY around it? That's incredible.
Unfortunately a lot of homebrewers are being priced out of the hobby now because of 'collectors.' When the equipment fails, and it will, it' can be hard to find some parts and expensive to replace 😥
wow james your editing is actually really tight ngl! this is really cool and informative as always as well!! goodonya
the vectrex was one of the holy grails for my collection for years, where i could only find them overseas for nearing or over 1k aud. i was real lucky to find one on gumtree for like $400 with like four other games including manuals, overlays and boxes. albeit the boxes are pretty dinged up. i really hope someone makes some aftermarket hard cases for them like you can get for nes/snes/n64/etc
Kristof Tuts sells his Vectrex games with hard vacuum formed boxes. I don't know if someone sells hard boxes alone.
Im loving james' new channel! His content is so entertaining!!!
this is such a cool idea as a console, i still have an old school tube tv and this could be an awesome thing to have. the 80's were such amazing years
This channel is golden, reminds me of some of the older video game channels of CZcams yesteryear that I loved watching.
Imagine the Vib Ribbon game on this
Something tells me that the graphics and Vib's speech were based on the vectrex
Is it cool in both direction and magnitude?
I remember when ashens did a video on his, I had no idea about the homebrew scene or that it could really play some absolute bangers
if ever I had a time machine, I'd want to go back in time with some of those home brew games and blow the minds of everyone with a vetrex back in the day
Thanks for more content on consoles I'd likely never have heard of otherwise.
I don't need sleep (its 2:32 am)
2:34 pm here babyyy
Wdym it's 4:32 pm
@@knockknock8371 welcome to Ontario baby
it's 2:57 pm right now (edt)
6:16 touhou!!! Didn't expect to see that here
Same here lmao
stupid weeb song
I remember seeing one of these in a Service Merchandise store, back in the day. Thanks for sharing this.
Oh wow, that buzz when turning on. That's one sound I hadn't even realized I had forgotten, but it brings me right back to my childhood.