A quick look at the Vectrex and PiTrex RetroRG…

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A quick look at
the Vectrex and
PiTrex
Posted on December 14, 2021 by Nicole
Branagan
We talk a lot about “scanlines” here, but
a lot of memorable arcade games of the
1970’s and early 1980’s like Asteroids,
Battlezone, Star Wars, and Tempest
didn’t have scanlines at all: they were
vector games, where the crisp sharp
lines drawn by the electron beam
formed the picture directly. But only one
game console ever brought the vector
gaming experience home: the Vectrex,
released by GCE and Milton Bradley in
1982. Here’s a quick overview and a look
at some cool stuff the enthusiast
community is doing with it today.

Take a look

The Vectrex has a prominent vertically-

oriented monitor. While it’s small and
very lightweight for a CRT thanks to its
plastic construction, it’s not exactly
portable, as it runs off of wall power. The
screen is the whole point here, and what
makes the Vectrex unique, though with
1.5MHz Motorola 6809 CPU, it’s no
slouch for the time. (The
contemporaneous Tandy Color
Computer, a home computer and not
just a game console, ran at 895kHz–
that’s kilo, with a k)

Unfortunately, even on a good day a

monochrome CRT is very hard to
photograph because of reflections. Not
that this screen is the best to show off
the system; when showing text like this,
the Vectrex is just drawing it using lines;
so as you can see, it’s not quite right to
say the Vectrex has no scanlines. This
game, Mine Storm, is actually built into
the console.

Where the Vectrex gets interesting is

when it starts drawing things that aren’t
horizontal lines.

These are perfect lines. Now, this blog is

displaying on a computer screen, and
the photo is an image of discrete pixels.
If you zoom in, you’ll see rows of dots.
But on the Vectrex, you don’t. No matter
how close to the screen you look, you’ll
see a diagonal line. This is very cool; it’s
a level of crispness that honestly we’re
only starting to reach with high-density
displays in the raster world. Gameplay-
wise, though, Mine Storm is a fairly
straightforward clone of Atari’s
Asteroids.

A Vectrex game

Here’s a boxed Vectrex game: Star Trek:

The Motion Picture. You might wonder
what a game based on the first Star Trek
movie might look like. Long, lingering
vector images of the U.S.S. Enterprise?
A space shooter where you face
absolutely zero enemies while playing a
thirty-minute trudge to V’ger? A
transporter-accident minigame where
you try to put Commander Sonak back
together?

Well, no.

The game comes with a colored overlay

to add some color to the monochrome
screen; this is pretty common, possibly
universal for Vectrex games. (Mine
Storm did have an overlay originally but I
don’t have it, though Asteroids was a
monochrome game originally anyways
so it’s not a huge loss) They also have
the controls listed at the bottom, which
is convenient.

In this case, the yellow square shows

your targeting area. In a twist Gene
Roddenberry may not have approved of,
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a
combat game; you fly through an area,
shooting Klingons, and docking at
starbases. It’s actually kind of like a real-
time action version of the old BASIC
unlicensed Star Trek game that came to
pretty much every computer in the
1970’s.
Sadly, they couldn’t spare a button for
self-destruct. The game runs at 50Hz,
which is typical of Vectrex games; as
we’ll see, this is a console where every
nanosecond matters. And of course,
since this is a Vectrex game, those
Klingon Birds of Prey you’re fighting are
nice and crisp. Just look at those lines.
So I think now we’re getting some
understanding of the Vectrex’s
capabilities. It can draw crisp lines, but
not too many of them; therefore, it’s no
surprise that a lot of Vectrex games take
place in outer space. Even moreso than
the PC Engine, this was a console made
for shooters. For pre-Space Invaders
shooters especially.

How does it work?

RGB is the best quality video for a raster

image because it has three continuous
signals. For a one-dimension raster
image, we only need one continuous
signal. But vectors force us to recognize
reality: the raster itself is a signal, just
one being generated inside the monitor.
So for just our simple monochrome
image, we need three continuous
signals. Two for the position (X and Y, in
cartesian coordinates) and we also still
need the intensity. And remember, these
are analog signals.

So let’s take a look at how the Vectrex

works. It’s worth noting that this is
compiled from a few sources, most
notably Keith Wilkins’ “INTERNAL.TXT”. I
haven’t coded for the Vectrex myself, so
I’m likely going to get some things
wrong; please send me an email or
message if I do and I’ll try to correct it.

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So with that caveat, here’s my best

understanding in a diagram. Note that
I’ve left off things like the sound or
controller reading (the Vectrex does
have analog controls! and its controller
is still nice to use, you hear that Atari
5200?).
The whole Vectrex is basically controlled
using a 6522 PIA. Well, it’s actually a
VIA, or so I called it in when I wrote a
blog post about the Mockingboard;
whether it’s a Peripheral Interface
Adapter or a Versatile Interface Adapter
seems to not matter. (The PIA acronym
seems to come from the Motorola side
while the MOS side usually calls it a VIA,
but PIA is what I see in most Vectrex
documentation despite the 6522 being a
MOS chip)

The first signal the PIA controls is

BLANK'. This signal is very simple; when
it is low (remember ' means active-low)
the CRT will not display a signal,
regardless of what the intensity is. This
signal is hooked up in such a way that it
can be hooked up to a timer on the PIA
as well; this allows for nice things like
dotted lines by turning it off and on in
succession.

The main functions, though, are the DAC

(digital-to-analog converter) and the
Integrator. The DAC is straightforward;
one 8-bit port on the 6522 is attached
to its input, which it converts to an
analog voltage. (And that voltage can go
negative) That voltage can be sent to
different places depending on the
output (and is always sent to the X input
on the Integrator, which I’ve called “dx”.)
The DAC can be used to control the
intensity signal directly.

The Integrator is in some sense the

heart of the Vectrex. And yes, this an
integral in the mathematical concept;
but don’t worry, as this is simply a linear
output with constant inputs: that is to
say, it draws straight lines. Let’s step
through a typical use case to
understand how this works.

1. The ZERO' bit is set low. This

causes the integrator to enter
zero-ing mode.
2. The RAMP' bit is set low. This
causes the integrator to become
 active. Since the zero pin is active,
this will reset to the default
position. (0,0) is the center of the
screen.
3. The RAMP' and ZERO' pins are set
high. This disables their functions.
4. Write an “integrator offset” value
using the multiplexer and the DAC.
You can think of this as a scale
factor on both dx and dy.
5. Write dy using the multiplexer and
the DAC. This value will be retained
when the multiplexer is redirected.
6. Write dx. This must be done last
because it’s hooked directly to the
DAC output.
7. Set RAMP' low. This will cause the
integrator to change its X and Y
outputs based on dx and dy. The
larger the dx, the faster X grows,
and vice-versa.
8. Wait. The longer you wait with
RAMP' low, the more the X and Y will
keep moving.
9. When you’ve gone on long
enough, set RAMP' high.

Step 8 is the one that you might find

particularly interesting. The length of the
vector is a function of time. So there’s
no way to just set the position of the
beam (except for the special case of
0,0); you need to move it at a speed, and
keep track of where you’re going. But
this makes sense when you think about
how a vector must move throughout the
screen. The Vectrex system does
contain a ROM that, in addition to the
built-in game, contains some drawing
routines that are frequently used to cut
some boilerplate for the game
developer.

Assuming direct control

You might notice something; everything

the Vectrex uses to control its screen
hardware is connected to the 6522 PIA
rather than to the CPU directly. This
makes sense, as the 6809 has no IO of
its own. This includes sound and
controller reading, which we left off of
the above diagram. And now let’s take a
look at the cartridge pinout, taken from
Ombertech.
The cartridge port exposes the full 16-
bit address bus, the 8-bit data bus, and
all of the control signals. It even exposes
HALT`, an important signal that allows
the cartridge to disable the CPU entirely.
Now, why would you want to do that?
Because the Vectrex gives the cartridge
all the tools to control the console itself,
making it incredibly upgradable. And
what small, affordable computer has a
large number of general-purpose IO
lines? The Raspberry Pi, of course.

The PiTrex is an open-source project

that features a board designed to
interface a Raspberry Pi Zero’s GPIO
lines directly to the Vectrex’s cartridge
port. This means that the 6522 is no
longer being controlled by a 1.5MHz 8-
bit 6809, it’s being controlled by a 1GHz
32-bit ARM CPU. As you’d expect, this
opens a lot of doors. One thing that
really impressed me about the PiTrex
project is that despite it being a bare-
metal project, it’s really easy to get
started with. You just need to add the
files in a folder.

Of course, a 1GHz CPU doesn’t

necessarily mean the PiTrex can do
everything a thousand times as fast as a
regular Vectrex. After all, the 6522 isn’t
designed to run that fast, and neither is
the CRT. Moving the beam can therefore
take the same amount of time it would
on the 6809. Still, everything that
doesn’t touch the hardware can benefit.

A quick look at PiTrex

This won’t really do PiTrex much credit,
as it’s more of a quick overview of some
things that are currently integrated into
the bare-metal distribution. I
recommend you check out the wiki
linked above for more details, and on
implementing things yourself. This is still
some of the most easily obtainable
ready-to-use vector gaming available,
which is part of what makes the Vectrex
so interesting.
Vectrex emulation

One thing you might expect from such a

device is a flash cart. But that’s not
actually what PiTrex offers; instead, it
offers a full emulation of the 6809 CPU,
based off of the VecX emulator. Why
emulate a console on the console itself?
Because it offers the ability to run in a
“Speedy” mode, allowing you to run the
code as fast as it’ll go. Though I have to
admit, when trying it in Berzerk, while
the emulation felt quite accurate, it did
not feel noticeably faster.
This environment is also a good place to
try out games like Malban’s Vectorblade.
Also, it turns out that the GCE rights-
holders allow the Vectrex games to be
freely-distributed by enthusiasts. That’s
an amazing move, one I wish was more
common.

Arcade emulation

Another cool feature this opens up is the

use of emulation of vector-based
games, using a real vector monitor. This
is not quite “real hardware”, but it’s also
more realistic than running these games
on a vector-based emulator. In this case
I’ve chose Atari’s Tempest; of course,
this was a color game, and the color
information is lost running it here.
You might notice that the text doesn’t
seem to quite line up, it’s sloping
somewhat down and to the right.
Because this controls the vector monitor
at a low level, it has a wide array of
calibration options, and when I took this
photo, my calibration wasn’t quite
perfect. Additionally, the emulation I
tried is definitely still in a developing
stage, without features like sound. Still,
this is very cool stuff.

Custom programs

The PiTrex is at your control, and is quite

well documented. The bare-metal
interface used here has a detailed library
available and documented for running
software a low-level. It goes without
saying that a modern ARM processor is
more suited to a modern development
environment than a time-limited 8-bit
processor, though the “VIDE” Vectrex
IDE also supports C development on the
6809 if that’s your fancy.

One example game is Kevin Koster’s

Hyperoids, included in the bare-metal
PiTrex distribution. You can see that it
has a bit more complexity than GCE’s
vintage Mine Storm. Also, I am not sure
if the failure of these hearts to form a
complete shape is a sign I still don’t
have the calibration down pat.

Other games to look out for for the

PiTrex as a platform is Malban’s
upcoming port of Elite, a beta version of
which is available in the current
distribution at the time of this writing.

Vectors so sharp you’ll poke

your eye out

The Vectrex seems to be the classic

video game industry example of poor
timing; while it is very cool, and offered
a number of innovations, it came out at a
time just as the North American video
game crash seemed to render the
industry dead. And a better time for it
never really existed, as the home video
game market moved away from the
simpler arcade-style games, and vectors
disappeared from the arcade as well.
We’re lucky to have gotten the Vectrex
at all.

And so I’m really excited to see that the

Vectrex is still alive and kicking as a
homebrew platform, both with or
without the PiTrex. I’m not sure I’ll try
something for it myself, as I’m not sure
my game development style fits well; the
Vectrex isn’t as good at the long
dialogue scenes I like to use to pad out
the game. Still, I’ll definitely keep an eye
there, and I recommend you do as well.

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If you can’t get ahold of a Vectrex, but
like soldering, the ScopeTrex open-
source project exists that translates
Vectrex games’ output into X and Y
signals for a typical analog oscilloscope.

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