Yeah, not really the same. I had a really really complete Vectrex setup, every game (even the stupid ones :-)) AND their overlays, I'm pretty sure every accessory. Which I ended up selling to a guy doing a museum?[1] Anyway it was quite the game for me. I knew eventually it would stop working and then just be a memory but still.
The screen was what really made it, and I get that having a vector scope manufactured would be expensive (it isn't true that nobody makes CRTs any more, but it is true that they don't come cheaply). Its also the reason I never really went all the way and bought one of my all time favorite arcade games which was the cockpit version of 'Star Wars' with its color vector display. (even harder to store!)
In a related effort, I looked at replicating a CRT "look" for some older test equipment that came with CRTs using a high dpi IPS display. I probably could have succeeded if I had an FPGA for doing the phosphor simulation (I developed a lot of respect for Tektronix's DPO technology and their patent portfolio on same :-). Very much a diminishing returns kind of thing.
[1] If you're that guy and reading this say "hi" :-)
I wonder if an FPGA is still necessary. 4k/8k are running way over 60 fps these days. Presumably a gpu could do a decent job emulating the phosphor.
In related news, atari 2600 emulators are keeping 4-8 cores > 50% busy these days. How else do you get accurate ntsc “red blur”, and capacitor effects from blinking pixels?
I suppose it would depend on how you wanted to simulate it. In my case I was targeting taking the signal from an unmodified test instrument that thought it was talking to a CRT and using that to figure out what display it wanted. That would be equivalent to taking the X/Y/Intensity lines from the mainboard of a Vectrex and just doing what the vector scope would have done. I drilled down enough to find the non-linear, temperature dependent, curve of phosphor decay times on the CRT used in some HP gear. It was pretty wild. If you buy third party kits they don't even bother simulating phosphor. Instead they just take the signals, figure out the information content of the display, and put that on an LCD. (Monochrome generally)
The screen was what really made it, and I get that having a vector scope manufactured would be expensive (it isn't true that nobody makes CRTs any more, but it is true that they don't come cheaply). Its also the reason I never really went all the way and bought one of my all time favorite arcade games which was the cockpit version of 'Star Wars' with its color vector display. (even harder to store!)
In a related effort, I looked at replicating a CRT "look" for some older test equipment that came with CRTs using a high dpi IPS display. I probably could have succeeded if I had an FPGA for doing the phosphor simulation (I developed a lot of respect for Tektronix's DPO technology and their patent portfolio on same :-). Very much a diminishing returns kind of thing.
[1] If you're that guy and reading this say "hi" :-)