CrossBow

Well, another thought is that Atari could have been working on such a module, and then figured out how to do it within the cartridge and normal hardware of the system as both Berzerk and Baseball were released in 1983 after that article was published? Another thought is that whomever they were getting their information from with Atari could have been mistaken about how the tech was being done, or it was deliberate as it would be quite something to have speech working from the console and games without extra hardware when the competition required separate modules to be purchased to accomplish this. It would be the shining gold star on Atari's image and on the hardware if it was suddenly announced that they could do the same thing without the extra cost required to consumers. So it is all speculate at this point. We know Atari was able to do it as both of the games listed demonstrate. Perhaps mention of a module exists in some paper archives in some body's house still yet to be discovered?

I've always considered this to be the first "Tower of Power" setup vs the Genesis + 32 + Sega CD setups. That said, I also find it funny that Atari came up with the least elegant looking solution for VCS gaming on a different console. That wouldn't get corrected until the 7800 was released.

I'm going to also answer similar to @MaximumRD and state that this should be possible yes. All of those 2600 clone add on devices work the same way. They are basically self contained 2600 consoles that are only using the power from the parent console to operate. They aren't using any of the actual logic from the parent console. The audio and video from these devices is done by the add on module itself as it is injecting its own audio and composite video output back to the parent console and through the parent consoles RF modulator. So if you provided separate power for the devices and add AV jacks along with possible AV upgrade components likely being needed to get a usable composite signal, then yeah, they can all be converted to be stand alone 2600 clones.

You would think that... but VecFevers have sold for nearly a grand in the past in USD money before. I think they are technically still being made as there are newer versions that have been released, but I believe the guy that makes them ONLY sells to actual game devs. I state this because I kinda had to go through some loops back in the day in order to get one by going through another dev to order it for me. That said, I did just update my VecFever last night to the latest version and I gotta say, the Galaga and Bosconian emulated games are really nice!. The actual Time Pilot arcade game is also available to play but I still prefer the way Vector Pilot plays overall.

@- Ω - this is what you are looking at if you want all of the Vector arcade games working on a Vectrex. VecFever on Ebay. Need some deep pockets though! So glad I was able to get mine when I did years ago!

Pretty sure we have talked about this before? But as will come to no surprise, my 7800 is my main console I use for both 2600 and 7800 gaming. I had a 4 switch woody originally when I was child, but it was given to my cousins in the late 80s when I got my 7800 and it replaced that 4 switch in our house back then. I have just about each model of the 2600 (Minus a 2800 but I've few of the SVA IIs). I do like the Vader models, but I would say my favorite looking one would be the 4 switch woody. Again, it was what I had when I originally grew up with Atari so that will always have that spot even if I don't use one today.

You guys better take a lot of pics for the rest of us!

Most of my games that I either bought from many weeks of allowance collecting or on Birthdays/Holidays was because of the box-art and back of the box screen shots. And it was also the folly of some of the choices I made. My mother to this day will not leave me alone about my buying Sneak n Peek back in the day because I thought the graphics on the box looked so cool and fun!. And then we find out to actually play the game the 2nd player has to turn around and not look at where the first player ends up hiding..etc. Such a crap game but I still state it had decent graphics for the time on the 2600 LOL! But yeah...most of the games I bought back then were usually because I was familiar with the arcade game or because the artwork and screenshots looked awesome to me.

Again there are threads over on AA that go into more detail about this and I think a few games even through the Tink5x might still have on occasional hiccup here and there. I do notice that when I've played ESB for instance, that while my screen doesn't go completely blank when I blow up an AT-AT, it does shift down one pixel for a second and then comes back up. Odd but you get to where you don't really notice it with the rest of the color cycling taking place at that time and the screen doesn't blank out so it doesn't jump out at me. So I do see a few things here and there, but at least with my fairly cheap AV setup, it handles it well. I had a buy whose 7800 I did complain because on Battlezone on his CRT through both composite and s-video, the entire gameplay field would move up and down as he moved his tank. It didn't do this through RF so he blamed the UAV causing this, but in reality Battlezone also has incorrect scanline count issues and as I stated before, the other inputs are much less tolerant of this so it was being shown on his TV with a slight jitter up and down that moved with the tank.

Who will these new users be exactly? Other Gen x types like myself that grew up with the system but unlike us, they forgot about these systems and want to relive that past history? New generation of gamers that might think these old games are hip and cool? I'm genuinely curious to know because I feel that while this is a great step towards what most of us would have really liked in a console like this, I do think it will be a 'fad' that once the anniversaries have all come and gone, it will be back to them just publishing old IPs as new versions for modern consoles with a few possible new games here and there.

Apparently the Tink5x Pro with its triple buffer mode corrects for a lot of this on 2600 games. I'm not aware of any 7800 games that exhibit this issue as it is caused by those 2600 games not adhering the proper scanline counts that NTSC signals use. On TVs they were much more tolerant of these slightly out of spec signals, but modern displays and the scalers don't expect these changes and so they either can't process when this happens (Blank screens), or they take a sec or two to adjust to the new sync. I actually don't have these issues on my UAV upgraded consoles because I have them all going through my Extron multi av selector. It converts all of the composite and s-video inputs as a standard VGA output. So in my case, my Extron is cleaning up these out of sync issues. The ONLY game I have that still gives me issues on my setup is Buck Rogers on the 2600. The title screen and level number screens are a wavy scrambled mess, but the actual game itself will play without issue. Should also note that even some CRTs will exhibit issues with composite and s-video upgraded consoles, because again, through RF it was expected to have some odd sync issues within the signal. But the CRTs expect a perfect scanline signal on composite and s-video which, just does not exist on some of these games created back in the day. So, yeah, apparently a Tink5x Pro can handle these issues and my setup seems to work okay. I think there are also some modified ROMs for some of these problem games to correct for these issues that can be found.

Well as everyone else is showing pics, I guess I better add some for what I was talking about or else it didn't happen right? Here is a pic of my 2600 Parker protos for Star Wars:TAG (WIP), and what appears to be release candidate 1 for Gyruss. I've had these dumped and ST:TAG is different from the released games while Gyruss appears to be the exact same as the released game. Still I got these in the early '00s through Yahoo auctions back when that was still a thing. As the labels are really hard to read now after over 40 years here are some zoomed in closeups with flash to make it easier to read the little label stickers on them. Starting with Gryuss... Here is Star Wars:TAG and you can see it says WIP on the sticker indicating it isn't the final version and again, dumping it has shown differences in the game play slightly. Here is a pic of the table top VFD games I mentioned. This isn't all that I own but are the ones that took me the longest to find for a good price. And there here is a pic of the VCS emulator for the Jaguar that Bryan Edwaard wrote while working for Temporary Sanity Designs back in July 1995 along with photocopies of the ROM Release Form and a letter that talks about what might have been and ultimately didn't happen. Oh..and I thought I would toss this in for good measure...

That would be problematic for some games that use that switch for additional functions. Star Master and Space Shuttle for instance. No, them placing the aspect switch where they did, sort mimics where the old channel select switch used to be on the 4 switch units. Also, yes, they are using Stella as has been mentioned, but it was also recently confirmed that they are using Prosystem for the 7800 emulation. That... is a real shame honestly. But apparently they did look at using A7800 however, the Rockchip in use, just isn't powerful enough to handle A7800. So... yeah, they went with Prosystem.

I honestly didn't mean to rain on your parade, but I thought you should know that those games and many of the other Atari vector based games were never released officially for the console and it honestly isn't quite powerful enough to run arcade accurate ports of those games. There are some home brews that are quite similar and many feel that the included Minestorm game that is built in on each Vectrex is just as fun as Asteroids ever was. Heck I think I like Stramash Zone more than Battle zone, but that homebrew is now fetching expensive prices as well these days. Anyone getting into or starting with the Vectrex needs to know that it is very much a system that if you see a homebrew game or device that even remotely interests you that is currently available, you do NOT sit around and think about buying. You pretty much need to buy those items then and there to get them at their best price because they always increase quite a lot in the future in most cases. I should also note, that while it hasn't been mentioned here. The games released by Kristof Tuts are worth owning a Vectrex for. Seriously, his port of Time Pilot called Vector Pilot is one of the best home brew games on any system. And the best part is that his games are not only amazing, but you can still buy them directly from him for far less money than scalpers on the 'bay would have you believe. http://www.kristofsvectrexgames.be/ I will note that his website will trigger most AV browser guards so you might have to add that link to an exclusion list like I had to in order to get it to come up and work.

There is a switch on the back that I believe says 4:3 - 16:9 so ...yes.

Battlezone and Lunar Lander didn't officially get released on the Vectrex. Those versions you've seen are likely the actual arcade roms of those games running in a special emulation mode from a VecFever cartridge or possibly the PiTrex (I think it can do this..). Using the Vectrex screen and some hardware to make it work. Star Wars:TAG is also playable in this way. But getting a VecFever cartridge is going to cost you even more than a working Vectrex these days.

I will not be in attendance this year. The costs for me are honestly out of hand for it. The ITC will be there in spirit through all the consoles folks are enjoying the new games on.

I've got two as well, but the other is not in as good a cosmetic condition as it has at least one broken boss post on the shell and the vector lines are a mess. I suspect one of the ICs it at fault for that since It has been recapped...etc...with no change. So, in my case, my spare is a parts spare. As for fair price I honestly don't know @- Ω - because I didn't technically have to pay for either of the two I own. The parts unit was given to me since it didn't work, and my actual working one was a gift from local collectors and friends to me for the 10th anniversary of my OVGE event I was hosting in the past here locally. I thought working Vectrex only consoles were in the about $300 - $400 range these days with spare controllers easily hitting $100 ? The games will vary like with any console however.

Not exclusively though as Al has confirmed that most 'Brews' are only going to run on original hardware still. Trust me, there will be a LOT more actual 2600s/7800s in use in their booth vs 2600+ consoles.

I have not! I do have the case you sent installed onto the 32k expansion I got from Evie at BackBit but no... just haven't had any time to get it setup. Been quite busy with a large commissioned services project that I'm finishing up as we speak and have a small stack of client requests in the waiting queue as well.

Getting the 5200 box is more difficult than it should be yes as I believe most of them were sold off in the 2600 boxes with a sticker or something over them to state it was the 5200 version inside.

Yeah I'm pretty sure that is a Ben early made VCS portable.

I don't play either of my two Lynx systems as much as I would like. Lack of time honestly. But I do have over 40 games for the system along with my AgaCart I purchased a few years back. I think some of my favorites on the system would be Xenophobe, Paperboy, Rygar, Zarlor Mercenary, and Xybots!

The DC Kiosk I've had since 2004. It originally came out of an EB games (Before they turned in Gamestop), and then was acquired by a small retro game store that was just getting started around 2003 and they setup a booth at my 2004 OVGE event. They had the KIOSK for sale at the event for about $300 I think it was? But there were no takers as again in this timeframe, the DC was just last gen and no one cared about it. They offered it to me for $250 at the end of the event and I did NOT hesitate to purchase. It is mostly all original still although when I got it, the original lock had been removed and two large sections of velcro had been used to remove the front to change games out etc. It also was missing one of the controllers. I remedied all of this shortly after and it has a proper lock/key on it again and replacement controller that I did have to drill holes into to mount to the arm like the originals did. That said, it currently had DC# 3 in it as the original died within a few weeks of owning it and the second one died a few years later. Both due to failed GDRom drives in them. DC #3 has been in there for well over a decade and had more hours on it than the others and at last check, was still working fine. But I will state that if the GDRom should fail in this one, I would most likely put an ODE into it so that way I can have a lot of games at the ready to play. The galga cocktail I've only had for about 8 years I think? It was serviced fully not long after I bought it but I'm sure the monitor is due for a recap at this point. It has been sometime since I powered it on but it was working great last time it was powered on.

Ah.. I see. I wasn't sure if that signal was available outside of the TIA to be found elsewhere or from another pin etc. I wonder if the cost to need ratio just isn't there for a new TIA replacement to be produced or hardware emulated/simulated off a PCB?