Vector Card - Anyone got/used one ?

[Dexter]

Have you seen this: http://www.zektor.com/zvg/index.html

Runs MAME Vectors games on a Vector monitor (Bruno, one for your star wars cab)

[Dazza]

That looks like quite a cool piece of hardware. Expensive though.

[Dexter]

Yeah, this is making me think of building a Star Wars cab and running MAME (for the Vector games) and Vector monitor.
Be as close to the real thing, and running is DOS mean quick load times.

Have to find a monitor and see if it's worth it.

[DarthNuno]

What a coincidence  I've got a package last week 



...features a brand new ZVG-KIT board + a cable for a Vectrex monitor + a cable for a G05 monitor 

I'm gonna make some test regarding ... SPACE WARS and/or Battlezone 

Stay Tuned 

[DarthNuno]

Got a mail from Zektor today 

Hi All,

You're receiving this email because you've either asked to be informed of when ZVG's were again available, or you've purchased a ZVG in the past (and no you're not part of a mailing list, everyone's address was added to this email by hand - ugh!).

So, this is to inform you that we are making one last run of ZVG, which will exhaust our supply of PCBs.

Many of the parts used on the ZVG have become obsolete, or are now marked "do not use for new designs", so we had to go to part brokers to find some of these.  The assembly costs of manufacturing small quantities has also risen substantially.

After this run of 40 [well, 42 but I'm keeping two for myself -- Zonn], we will be out of PCBs, and the parts needed to make ZVG's.

So this it it! Last run, sold on a first come first served basis!

-Zonn


PS We're also out of Vectrex cables and won't be making any more, but fortunately these are easy to make and a full description of how they are wired, complete with Digikey part numbers, is available online at:

http://www.zektor.com/zvg/downloads.htm


So for those who are looking for that... it's now or never 

PS : I've done some test few months ago (not published yet) and I can tell you ... it works great !!

[Hi]

Good news, but
Huge shipping cost to Europe and 10 $ added for additional cable 

[shilmover]

It sold out very quickly...

Here is a video to mine.  i am almost finished it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8vtM-nFn40

[level42]

Damn that rotating Atari fuji is sexy..... I thought about it but I just have no serious use for it right now.

The majority of people may have ordered this just to put it away for a couple of years and then sell it on e-bay for 5 times the original price....



UNLESS there will be a new version ?

[Hi]

Lastest news from ZVG, I ordered mine but too late for this run

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hello ****

We just wanted to say thank you for your continued interest in the ZVG product. We truly did not expect the response we received when we announced we would be releasing a limited last run of this product.

Repeatedly we have received E-mails over the last couple years asking when we would produce the ZVG again. This steady steam of inquiries along with recent releases of additional support software from third parties finally prompted us to look into what our inventory levels were to consider one last build.

We determined 40 was a number we could produce based on existing parts and thought we’d sell half and end up sitting on the rest. Yea, we were way wrong on that guess. We received orders through our website for more than twice that and many more inquires that could not be responded to quickly enough to get their orders input in time.

I’m sorry to say that if you are receiving this message, your order was one that could not be fulfilled in this run of 40 units. Having said that, due to the demand for this item we have agreed to make another run for a larger amount in the next 60 days. The actual quantity will be based on orders received over the next couple weeks.

Although your order will not be able to be shipped with this first group, I would like to keep it in our system and make product from this second run available to you. Leaving these orders in our system will be a more reliable way to keep you in queue as our E-mail notification system letting people know these were available just didn’t work as planned. Many people who waited over a year were not able to get one of these initial 40 units.

Unless we hear back from you to cancel your order we will keep it in our system. Regardless we will be refunding any PayPay monies and/or canceling CC authorizations by tomorrow as these items will not be available for several weeks from now.

After another couple weeks once we have an idea of how many more units to produce, we will contact you again, gauge your interest in maintaining your order and re-determine a payment method at that time.

Thanks again!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[DarthNuno]

Back on this.  

Here's the result of the preliminary test I've done last year.
Because I'm not sure if the XY monitor I got especially for my "Space Wars" is working, I'll setup the card on a Vectrex monitor first.



Very easy to connect to the Vectrex, thanks to Zektor who provides the custom cables for that.



Let's check the parallel setup in the bios...



...from this powerful Tecra 500CDT from 1996, including Intel Pentium SL Enh (120 MHz !!!)    



Looking good so far, the software recognizes the presence of the ZVG board    



Let's go! It works...



...but the amplitude of the picture is not correct... let's check that...maybe I can set it via the software?



Mhhh, not better...



Wait! There are the right potentiometers on the ZVG board itself! Hell yeah    



Looking good! The real arcade asteroids on a Vectrex monitor    



..and what about Battlezone    



Even running on that Pentium 120 Mhz, the speed is not too bad! Of course there's no sound, and that's not the computer I plan to use  

Here's the "I'm happy video" the result of that first test... very promising :



Next step, working on the real XY arcade monitor instead the Vectrex one  

[Superully]

very very cool, bruno, looks like that space wars cab is going to see the light of day after all ...

[DarthNuno]

very very cool, bruno, looks like that space wars cab is going to see the light of day after all ...

Yeps! That's the plan 

[level42]

Mmm, very nice. But is running the ZVG board on that CONDUCTIVE protecting bag a wise idea ??

[DarthNuno]

Ops... I didn't know these bags are slightly conductive  (more details here)
Good to know for the future. 

[level42]

Well, I think the outer side of the bags are not conductive and looking again at your pics it looks like the PCB is on the outside...but it could have touched a part of the inside where it folds open....better by safe than sorry.

This is also the reason you shouldn't put a PCB with on-board batteries inside one of those bags without covering the solering pins on the other side... !

Anyway, looks like no harm done ! Great to see those games on a Vectrex.

If you ever think of ditching that laptop, I'm up for it. My current laptop for programming EPROMs is showing bad problems, I guess it's still too fast for the burner