Hello assemblergames, I've been a long time stalker of this forum and now I finally got around to joining. This week I went to a local thrift store and managed to come across a Vectrex for only $5. When I asked for assistance the man told me he was going to buy it for his conversion van at the end of the day. I told him it wasn't a TV and he looked confused. :banghead: The unit turns on and the screen is bright. There is a humming noise, but I've found out this is common among the earlier models. It is missing a controller, which I'm sure I can pick up on eBay. The trickier part though is going to be finding replacement reset and volume knobs. I've attached two pics to this post. Are there any great resources out there for Vectrex owners that need replacement parts?
Nice find, the reset button is just a button. As for controller just make one of these with a genesis pad. http://vectrex.classicgaming.gamespy.com/controller.txt
Thanks for the tip Jamtex. I'll resort to using cannibalizing a Genesis pad if all else fails. I need to have the original controller. I'm a bit of a retro snob like that.
Read the link carefully, as there are a couple of games that require full analog control and won't function with the d-to-a hack that happens with the Genesis pad conversion. Also, you're probably already aware of the fact that the whole GCE first-party library is in the public domain, which is why Vectrex multicarts are generally legal to own, to buy and to sell. For my money, a Vectrex game just isn't complete without the color overlay. Check this FTP site for images that you can get onto thick plastic with the right printer: ftp://ftp.csus.edu/pub/vectrex/overlays/
Ahh, the Vectrex.... was my first game console, and it's still dear to my heart. Even got the GCE Vectrex. Best-looking of the 3(though a Bandai one would certainly be a larger feather in your hat). I certainly support the quest for an original controller, given it's a cosmetic part as well as a functional one(I DO love how it folds into the system when not in use, even if the cord DOESN'T really fit). Vectrex Buzz is common to almost all units at this point. The root cause is interference from the video hardware into the speaker cable. By design, there's a channel in the case along the "cleanest" route through the system. The speaker cable is taped into that channel, which greatly reduces the buzz. In the real world, tape doesn't hold for a quarter-century, and the cables are all flapping free. If you're feeling brave, you can open it and resecure the cable. But as someone that grew up on the Buzz, it seems wrong to fix it. They are NOT in the public domain. Smith Enginering has granted the community the right to freely distribute all materials they own the copyrights to, provided such distirbutions are not for profit. As it happens, that means all vintage Vectrex materials(not just games, this includes manuals, overlays, the BIOS, and the service manual) are distributable, as Smith Engineering was the system's only developer, and all copyrights reverted to them when the system was finally killed.* That is the extent to which the situation is different from most games. It's a far cry from public domain, most notably in that there's restrictions on the kind of distribution that can be made and that no modifications are authorized. The argument on multicarts is that the original suppliers were only charging for parts and labor. *It IS debatable whether they still have valid licenses for the licensed titles and logos, particularly when Pole Position was sublicensed from Atari Corp, who no longer has rights to the title(or even exists). But I don't think Namco really cares that people are passing Vectrex Pole Position around any more than Paramount cares about Vectrex Star Trek. And it's really not clear who owns the Cinematronics vector games that make up most of the Vectrex library(or Stern's video games, which means Berzerk in this case), so... meh. Long story short: The licenses are a big fat moot point because no one cares about the Vectrex. But the stuff still isn't public domain.
Versions of Vectrex @JayBee The one I found has the GCE logo on it in the upper right hand corner. What was the model variant other than the Bandai one?
JB, thanks for the clarification on the status of the Vectrex IP. Obviously my understanding of the situation was a little too simplistic. I do know that there have been cases where Vectrex copyright holders have asked that their stuff not be distributed on multicarts, but I don't know if that occurred with large companies or smaller hobby developers. But like you say, the licensing is moot since there's no money to be made. Or is there? Given that there's Vectrex hardware in some arcade machines and bar kiosks, and that government licensing means that there's tax money to be collected on registering those games, I'd say there's a small subset of copyrights that could still be contested. But I'm too lazy to check that out myself.
Milton-Bradley had rights to the Vectrex briefly. Their art is better suited to a PacMan machine than a vector game console. kendrick: The Vectrex situation is very commonly misrepresented, partially due to the emulation community equating public domain with "legally downloadable" It's easy to get wrong. The people asking their stuff be left off multicarts are all hobbyists(understandable, since they make and sell their own carts). Smith Engineering owns all the old games. Vectrex really didn't last long enough to have outside support.
Repair and kitbashing information found here: http://www.playvectrex.com/ Documentation, the service manual and the source page for the overlays link I posted earlier: http://www.videogames.org/html/VectrexStuff/VectrexIndex.html The three places I had bookmarked that provided Vectrex repair for a fee have gone away, so if you were asking for a service and not information, I can't help you there.
Pheew. I dread to think how many Vectrexes have ended up being mistaken for a TV and ruined/scrapped.
Crap. There is a Vectrex controller auction going on eBay right now. At last check its up to $46 + S/H, and that is with 2 days left. I'm going to end up paying through the nose to complete this thing. I suppose you can't win them all. $5 for a console and 10x more for the peripheral. Guh.
Don't feel too bad made. I bought a fantastic Flat Screen CRT composite TV for 3000 yen! Deal of the year but the remote cost me 5000 yen ! Still, I'm now a happy retro gamer. yakumo
