Vectrex games in color (part 1)

Hi folks!

It's been quite a while since i've posted something but to begin this year, i'll talk about a subject that has been on so many minds for so many years: Color Vectrex Games!

But this subject isn't new, in fact, it's pretty old as it started with Smith Engineering when they tried to do a color Vectrex with two layers of  phosphor on an ordinary b&w CRT, which to this day, is the only Vectrex color prototype found to this day (year 2020).

(both pictures from atarihq.com)

And here's some pictures taken from (err...lost the info, sorry!) the prototype above which you can see three different phosphor colors (red, white & yellow)

And this was way back in 1983! Also, Smith Engineering wanted to use  a color CRT but this option was way to expensive. Already the Vectrex was retailed at $199 back in 1982, could you imagine how much it would have cost in color ?! Let's just say that it would have failed because of the high price.

So between 1984 and 1996, no new games were developed until John Dodzilla released, not one, but a few "hombrew" games for the Vectrex.

In the meantime, emulators has begun to pop-up (who remembers M.A.M.E v0.01 ?) and the only Vectrex emulator that existed in the late '90's was the DVE (Dos Vectrex Emulator) which the very first version to appear was version 1.0 by Keith Wilkins in (1996 or 1997? - err....damn i feel so old now...lol!)

And later in the new millennium, other Vectrex emulators began to show up (notable ones: ParaJVE and VecX) but that's another story as i will get back to the DVE...trust me, it's the star of this subject!

Now, in December 2017, a fellow by the name of Jason Kopp (aka Arcade Jason):

decided to hook-up a Vectrex on a color vector monitor, and the results were amazing!

But the problem is that the colors are variable depending which intensity is connected to which RGB color (Red/Green/Blue) and by connecting 2 out of the 3 RGB colors, you can obtain Cyan, Mauve or Yellow. What would be needed is a color circuit of the type used in old Pong consoles and determine which color does what.

Oh and BTW, the very first vector arcade to use colors was Tempest by Atari in 1981 (just an historical fact in case you didn't know).So now the craze of having a Vectrex playing in color has begun! But for me, it has been about 15 years that i've been playing some Vectrex games in color
and i'm NOT bullshitting anyone. One of many project i worked on (i have too many!) is the one called the "VCA" project (Vectrex Color Arcade) which in the beginning i called it "Vector-X" project as i wanted to make a real Vectrex (bartop) arcade in color back then.

Here's a picture of my son playing Web Wars in color when he was 3 years old:

Now my son is 14 years old as i took this picture on June 25, 2009. And in the following months, i have put on my old web site (now defunct) this page: https://web.archive.org/web/20140718234249/http://www.ccjvq.com/slydc/project/vca/vca.htm


I've made two MOV files back then and those were not really good as i had a so %??% cheap video card. But now with technology that advancing so rapidly, i have taken two videos and put them on Youtube:

Oh crap...just saw that both videos have too much brightness! My fault! And here's some screenshots
from the VCA:

Berzerk: only displays one color

Dark Tower: Displays many colors!! 

 Spinball: That one has 3 colors and i'm using hard 

colors on top of the vectors.

 Vectropolis 500: Hidden game with many colors.

 Vectrace: only displays two colors.

 Web Wars: This one too displays many colors!

 Wormhole: Think John Dondzilla would shed a tear 

or two to see so many of his games displaying 

in colors.

Y.A.S.I.: Alex has outdone himself!

So, are you eager to play some Vectrex games in color ?! But you will have to wait (it's been about 15 years, can wait for 2-3 weeks ?!) as i want to explain how the %?%?%? i'm able to play in color before releasing anything.

Ok, so what is the "VCA" project ?

That project began with the DVE created by Keith Wilkins and updated by Chris Salomon (aka Malban), and a guy by the name of "Walt Garey"(i'll talk about Walt in the next part of the story). So long story short, i was able to display different colors on specific vectors and later on, since the space on each sides of overlays were blank, i started to it in good terms like in M.A.M.E using bezels, so now instead of using overlays to colorize, which i wasn't using anymore, i was making bezels for the DVE so that's how the VCA project was born.

You can see a few of these bezels (from Berzerk to Y.A.S.I.) and the best one i've ever made was the one for Y.A.S.I. as it took more than one month to draw pixel by pixel...No Joke! I started to draw these bezel pixel by pixel until i've figured a way to do these bezel way faster and simplier.

So the next question: How to i colorize the vectors ?

That my friends, will be told in the next part of this story and i left a "hint" in the first video (Dark Tower) so in the meantime, check out both videos and take care folks!

--- Sly DC ---