If you read hacker daily long enough, you may encounter some hackers who make simple animations or even video games on the analog oscilloscope screen. These hackers usually use vector graphics, and the electron beam of the cathode ray tube draws the geometry directly on the screen. This gives the image a unique appearance, distinct from the pixel based raster displays used on TVs and most computer monitors.
In the early 1980s, vector displays were also used in several arcades, including the classic “storm”, “gravitar” and “Star Wars”. In order to simulate these games more realistically than on raster monitors, [robin champion] designed vstcm: a color vector monitor controller, which is used to easily drive RGB vector monitors.
Star Wars (1983) displayed on CRT display. The design is based on the v.st system of [trammel Hudson] and [Adler Lin], so it has a small microcontroller and a log to analog converter. Although v.st can only be connected to monochrome X / y systems such as oscilloscope, vstcm can be used with RGB monitor to simulate color vector based games almost perfectly. A customized software interface connects vstcm to advancename. Advancename is a special version of the famous arcade emulator, which can easily connect to unusual display systems.
Although [robin] pointed out that the performance did not reach the expected level and asked those familiar with the teensy platform to help optimize the code, the final result must be like this. If you want to build vstcm but can’t find a vector monitor, you can modify the bracket of traditional CRT at any time. Want to know more about vector display? Take a look at this detailed introduction.