Vectrex 3D Imager Replacement on Ebay!
Kev
will be offering them general sale in awhile; but I need to get some cash
so I can finish buying the supplies to make more.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4315&item=3088173702
Happy bidding!
Marc Goldman
It seems you can make plenty of cash selling them on eBay!
I know a few people on here (myself included) would be happy to pay upfront
so you can get your supplies.
Please email me if you want me to do that.
Cheers
Marc
solder_doc
Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA
(long time admirer of Kevin Horton's work)
Chris Romero
Chris Romero
Chad Tower
to me like you can get your supplies AND enough word of mouth to sell
even more of them... let us know if prepayment is something that would
work for you (I can't imagine it wouldn't).
Chad Tower
"Chris Romero" <nospamto-cr...@romero.org> wrote in message news:<Rsgac.30501$TP3....@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com>...
Cecil Casey
willing to prepay.
-Cecil
Richard Hutchinson
Thanks.....
Richard H.
Richard Hutchinson
It'll go down well with UK customers, because they're very hard to find
here.
Richard H.
orion105
Marc Goldman
You're not wrong there!
I've been looking for a pair since I read someone had tested Kev's device.
Lots of searching lead me to a collector with a spare pair and I traded a
Sonic R (Saturn), Streets of Rage 2(Genesis) and Ghostbusters on DVD for
them. Should be here today :)
Cheers
Marc
Kev
news:406a62d6$0$3307$cc9e...@news-text.dial.pipex.com:
> ....Have you thought about bundling it with the Sega glasses ?
>
> It'll go down well with UK customers, because they're very hard to find
> here.
>
I can't bundle them with SMS glasses (know of a secret stash?) HOWEVER, I
did find a company selling what looks to be compatible (and much sturdier)
glasses for $20 a pair, brand new. I was thinking of doing a bundle deal
with those at some point once I get this thing off the ground. Sound good
to anyone?
Marc Goldman
I'm sure the answer is a big YES! to that.
Cheers
Marc
Richard Hutchinson
>this thing off the ground. Sound good to anyone?
Yes, I'd prefer this bundle as I've had no luck locating any Sega goggles.
Richard H.
Raymond Pfaff
Sounds great to me. Like others, I'd be willing to prepay.
Robert Bernardo
> HOWEVER, I
> did find a company selling what looks to be compatible (and much sturdier)
> glasses for $20 a pair, brand new. I was thinking of doing a bundle deal
> with those at some point once I get this thing off the ground. Sound good
> to anyone?
Oooo, that would be great! I'd like to order the bundle, too.
Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
Kev
news:hddt601c9ls5qkm6d...@4ax.com:
> Sounds great to me. Like others, I'd be willing to prepay.
Yah, sorry I don't take pre-paying... I don't like accepting money unless I
have product waiting to be shipped. I've seen too many people get burned
that way. I do have the adaptors just about finished now though, all I
need to do is buy some more heat shrink to finish them up!
Oh, one more thing... I was talking to a friend who has the Vecflash
device, and it appears the menu program screws with the adaptor... Loading
a single 3D game works fine on the cart, but if the game is loaded through
the menu, it won't work right. The menu must be doing something to the
player #2 game port.
The adaptor works fine on stand alone carts, and the Sean Kelly multicart
however, and the Vecflash if you load the game in place of the menu
software. I don't know if this problem can be fixed easily on my end, both
because of the way the adaptor works, and because I don't have a Vecflash.
Richard Hutchinson
The menu sends info to the VecVoice 1 (on port 2) .It's used for terminating
the sound if reset is pressed while it's speaking (not a problem with VV2).
I can get Alex to take it out no problem.
Richard H.
Kev
Ding! We have a winner :-) Interesting that that's in there. It may be
better to have a toggle or something... In the loader program, have a
checkbox that enables or disables that feature. It may be useful to
someone.
Richard Hutchinson
Also, Alex has been trying to Email you regarding adapting the Vec front-end
menu to work with your adapter, but we haven't got a valid Email address for
you.
Could you please contact Alex direct (alex@>removethis<herbs64.com)
Thanks...
Richard H.
Ocelot
> Kev, who was it who tried the imager with the VecFlash ?
I'm the guilty party ;-)
When you turn on the vec Kev's interface starts up immediately
when port 2 gets power. This is a bit different than the real 3D
Imager which waits for pulse to start the motor, get it up to speed,
and start sending pulses back to the vec to make the game start
playing. Kev told me that this was done because there's no way for
the LCD goggles to 'wait' once port 2 gets power. The VecFlash menu
program seems to be causing the LCD Goggles to be permanently stuck in
this iniital 'boot up' mode and ignore any 3D imager signals from a
game. If you plug in the LCD goggles AFTER the game has started then
there's no problem.
I was going to put some of my impressions of the 3D interface in
another post, but I think they might be more appropriate here.
After comparing the SMS goggles to the real Vec Imager I've found that
there are some differences in how the 3D is presented:
Using the SMS goggles IMPROVES on what was a fundamental design
flaw in the original Imager. Spinning a half-black disk in front of
your eyes to channel information to each eye separately is a technique
that dates back to the 1920's -- you watched a 3D film through the
spinning disk attached to the theater seat in front of you. The
problem is that there will always be a point in the rotation of the
disk where both eyes can see the screen at the same time. With
Vectrex 3D this effect is displayed as a set of flickering double
images that can be quite distracting. With the LCD shutter goggles
you don't see this effect nearly as much, though I suspect that the
millisecond of time it takes for the LCD panel to be fully 'on' might
let you see both images.
When the idea of using SMS goggles was being tossed about there was
some concern that the LCD shutters wouldn't be able to totally block
the high contrast Vectrex images. This doesn't appear to be the case
in practice.
The lack of colour with the LCD goggles may cause some problems
with focusing. I'm finding that the addition of colour helps your
brain to sort out which images are supposed to be two slightly
different views of the same object instead of two different objects.
This is really apparent in Crazy Coaster and I'm finding it very
difficult to focus on the rails without any colour. I feel like I'm
forcing my eyes to resolve on an object the way you would strain with
one of those 'Magic Eye' pictures. Your mileage with this may vary as
I've trained my eyes in my previous profession to look at 3D
stereograms of molecules -- I might be the only person that this
affects.
Once Kev had the 3D working we were tossing around ideas for
emulating the colour information. Transparent LCD colour panels are
very difficult and expensive to manufacture -- you'd be better off
paying top dollar for the real 3D Imager. One idea we had was to do
quick pulses of the shutters when one eye is supposed to be seeing the
screen, to dim the light of the vectors as they reach your eye so you
would see the colour as shades of grey. Unfortunately the LCD
shutters take time to be fully 'on' or 'off' and can't be switched on
or off at the speeds needed to make this effect work.
Overall, the 3D effect with the LCD goggles is excellent, and is
very close to (if not slightly better than) the real imager.
Personally, I don't feel that the existing crop of 3D games really
take advantage of 3D; however this criticism could be equally levelled
at almost any Virtual Boy game. If/when 3D Pole Position surfaces we
may have a better idea of what the Imager was capable of. It may also
be in the best interests of programmers to tailor new 3D games to the
strengths of the LCD shutter glasses rather than the real imager.
Regards,
Rob S.
GeoFury
Very informative.
> It may also
>be in the best interests of programmers to tailor new 3D games to the
>strengths of the LCD shutter glasses rather than the real imager.
Yes, but how well will a 3D game geared towards the LCD shutter glasses work
with the 3D Imager? Better, worse, about the same, or not at all?
I shot a 3D film once (using the polarized filter technique). Never again!!!
George
Kev
Will do. Thanks!
As for a source for those $20 LCD glasses, the link is:
http://www.razor3donline.com/wired3dglasses.html
The only thing is, I have not bought a pair so I do not know if they use
the standard pinout... I'd HOPE they do; it seems other glasses use the
same wiring pinout. It'd be kinda silly not to since I think they
conform to the same way headphones pin the connector. You got a common,
left, and right for headphones and I think the glasses work the same.
Sunday night I will begin accepting orders for the adaptors it looks.
The heatshrink (clear) is on the way! It is all I need to finish these
up. BTW if the above glasses are not pinned properly I can always
replace the connectors on them to conform with the SMS glasses. I will
buy a couple pair of the glasses this week to check the plug and I may
offer them for sale at cost to go with the imagers as a package deal.
In the mean time I need to create a web page for this device and some
kind of instruction sheet for using it.
Kev
65.24.7.50:
> replace the connectors on them to conform with the SMS glasses. I will
> buy a couple pair of the glasses this week to check the plug and I may
> offer them for sale at cost to go with the imagers as a package deal.
Bad form and all that to reply to one's own post, but I just ordered two
pairs of these... so we shall see when I get them!
Richard Hutchinson
>permanently stuck in this iniital 'boot up' mode and ignore any 3D imager
>signals from a game. If you plug in the LCD goggles AFTER the game has
>started then there's no problem.
Don't worry Alex is going to fix this, and the new menu code will be in the
next release of the VF loader.
BTW how are you going on with the VecFlash ?
Did you find the 'batch load' function OK to use ?
Richard H.
Ocelot
> Very informative.
>
> > It may also
> >be in the best interests of programmers to tailor new 3D games to the
> >strengths of the LCD shutter glasses rather than the real imager.
>
> Yes, but how well will a 3D game geared towards the LCD shutter glasses work
> with the 3D Imager? Better, worse, about the same, or not at all?
Should be about the same. My idea of optimising 3D games for the LCD
glasses would entail more extensive use of the brightness settings for
vectors to help your eyes resolve where the image should 'be' in 3D
space. The existing imager games don't employ this technique very
much. It's more difficult for your eyes to resolve something where
the double images cross with an image thats supposed to be in another
3D plane. The tracks in Crazy Coaster suffer from this -- With the
real imager these objects would be a different colour than the tracks
and you would be able to distingush them from foreground objects.
Without that colour cue you'll have to rely on vector brightness for a
cue as to where the objects are located. It might be a good idea to
avoid having objects in two planes coss each other.
> I shot a 3D film once (using the polarized filter technique). Never again!!!
I bet there are lots of lighting issues with the polarized filters!
I've heard that directing film or video for Pulfrich 3D (Left/Right
motion parallax) is an exercise in frustration. At least the final
result can be viewed without special glasses if the 3D effects don't
work out.
Regards,
Rob S.
GeoFury
>Should be about the same. My idea of optimising 3D games for the LCD
>glasses would entail more extensive use of the brightness settings for
>vectors to help your eyes resolve where the image should 'be' in 3D
>space....
That's a great idea, and it could only improve the games when viewed through
the Imager as well. I haven't played the 3D games lately, but I think that 3D
Minestorm utilizes this technique for the mines that are in the background. 3D
Minestorm, in my opinion, is by far the best of the three 3D games. I can't
even focus the other two properly, making them unplayable for me.
>I bet there are lots of lighting issues with the polarized filters!
You're right! It was a real nightmare. Every single shot must be fine tuned
specifically because of the filters/lighting. It's also just a pain, when
shooting a film, to have to use a mirror attachment for the two angles.
Projection is a whole new set of problems, as I'm sure you know! One thing
positive about the experience...the results using this system can be
extraordinary. I was shocked when I viewed the initial results.
>I've heard that directing film or video for Pulfrich 3D (Left/Right
>motion parallax) is an exercise in frustration. At least the final
>result can be viewed without special glasses if the 3D effects don't
>work out.
I've read about this too. I commend the people who have worked with this for
their patience.
George