RickR's Blog

An excellent example and cool collection! 

My cousin had a Vectrex growing up and I loved playing the thing whenever we visited VA from OH. This extended to my visits into our 20s, before I moved west. It was at his grandparents house the last time I visited circa 2001.  I was helping my late great-uncle at his sign shop for a few weeks and would play that Vectrex nearly every evening, after work.

I've always wanted to add one to the collection and hope to do it in 2022.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Sabertooth

What are the three multicarts that you own @RickR? I also have a small Veccy collection. Mine was a gift that was given to me just after the OVGE 10th anniversary expo I hosted. It was a present from my friends who were a part of the event as a thanks for hosting it. Since then, I've recapped mine (Really sucked since I didn't have my de-soldering iron back then), Installed two different no buzz type kits until I finally installed Charles Tweety's No Buzz kit and also his Vectrex Audio Tap modification as well. I've thought about seeing if those UV LED frames are still available, but that is really only useful with UV reactive overlays to go with it and when I calculate what all of that would cost (Since it mostly has to all come from the UK) vs how much I actually play the vectrex... I've not seen a justification in that. I play on mine with a modded genesis controller I did a few years back.

My favorite games on the system is without a doubt Kristof Tut's releases of Vector Pilot and Vector Patrol as well as the homebrew release of Vectorblade. They really showcase what the Vectrex was capable of then and now!

The three multicarts I have are:

• A Jay Smith 72 in 1 dated 2008 that came with the Vectrex when I bought it.
• The VecMulti, which uses an SD card and is probably the best thing available since you can add new ROM files.
• Jason Kopp's multicart, which is really good for having so many games embedded, and he only charges $20 + shipping for them.  The ultimate bargain.  It also has an LED on the cart, which is a nice feature. 

The buzz off kit is better than I imagined it would be.  It not only eliminated the headache-inducing buzz, but also the slightly pulsating graphics.  I didn't realize how noticeable that was until it's gone.  What a difference.  It looks more like an arcade machine than ever now.  I've gotten a lot of negative comments about having the buzz-off installed ("It's not a Vectrex without the buzz"), but I disagree wholeheartedly.  HUGE improvement.

I will look for and try Vector Pilot and Vector Patrol as I haven't seen those.  Thank you for the suggestions.  My favorite is probably Armor Attack.

 

35 minutes ago, RickR said:

The buzz off kit is better than I imagined it would be.  It not only eliminated the headache-inducing buzz, but also the slightly pulsating graphics.  I didn't realize how noticeable that was until it's gone.  What a difference.  It looks more like an arcade machine than ever now.  I've gotten a lot of negative comments about having the buzz-off installed ("It's not a Vectrex without the buzz"), but I disagree wholeheartedly.  HUGE improvement.

I think those that complain about removing it, are those that grew up with the console. I personally didn't even know the Vectrex ever existed until I got back into classic gaming in the early 2000s. I don't recall commercials or ever seeing one on display when I was a boy so for me I have no nostalgia towards the console. As a result the buzz was a pita to me.

One disadvantage.. yes there is one, to removing the buzz, is that some demos relied on the way that buzz was generated for sound. As a result the demo for Bad Apple has barely audible audio. No amount of volume adjustment or other fixes I've tried works to correct for this. Also the buzz-off didn't totally remove the buzz in my unit as there is still a tiny bit there, However, it is only audible through the internal speaker as the VAT captured audio does not have any buzz from it. 

I also own three mutlicarts:

- VecMulti 

- Jason's Kopps Multicart that I received in November (about a year after I ordered it LOL) and...

- a VecFever... The VecFever might be my favorite with the additional games it game with and the ability to run modified Vector arcade MAME roms through it and on the Vectrex.

Although the PiTrex project has supplanted the VecFever in many regards. Additionally there is a VecFever II that has the ability to play rom images of much larger size and internal storage but I'm good with the seemingly unobtainium one I own.