Game List

The VF only comes with all the games/apps managed by the menu which include both all emulators and all of my own 6809 games for the Vectrex:

Complete Main Page List

Note: emulators need romsets to run which are not provided; main page entries are enabled/disabled via the entry ‘game list’ of the ‘main page’ option.

• 2048 Deluxe
• Akalabeth
• Aliens (early Tempest prototype romset)
• Alpha One (Major Havoc prototype romset)
• Armor Attack
• Asterock
• Asteroids Deluxe (romsets rev1/2/3)
• Asteroids (romsets rev1/2/4)
• Barrier
• Battlezone
• Battlezone Plus (hack of Battlezone)
• Beluga Dreams
• Berzerk
• Black Widow
• Bloxorz
• Bomb Jack
• Bosconian (Namco, Midway)
• Boxing Bugs
• Bradley Trainer
• Demon
• Dungeons of Daggorath
• Eliminator
• Eliminator 4P
• Elite: The New Kind
• Empire Strikes Back
• Fortress of Narzod
• Galaga (Namco rev.B, Namco, Midway Set 1 & 2)
• Gallag (Galaga bootleg)
• Gatsbee (Galaga hack)
• Gravitar (version 3)
• Head On
• Hyperoid
• ICBM 3D
• Lunar Battle (‘prototype, later’ of Gravitar)
• Lunar Lander (rev 2)
• Nebulous Bee (Galaga bootleg)
• Major Havoc (rev 3)
• Major Havoc – the promised end (v1.00)
• Major Havoc – the promised end (French, v1.00)
• Major Havoc – the promised end (German, v1.01)
• Major Havoc – return to Vax
• Marine Fox v1.3
• MineStorm II
• New Rally-X
• Omega Race (set 1)
• PDP-1
• Pootan
• Pooyan
• Pooyan (Stern)
• Protector
• Protector LE
• QB-3
• Quantum (Rev.2, Rev.1 & Prototype)
• Rally-X
• Rebel Defender
• Red Baron (revised hw)
• Release
• Rip Off
• Robot Arena
• Rocks ‘n’ Saucers
• Rocks ‘n’ Saucers Deluxe
• Scramble
• Solar Quest
• Space Duel
• Space Fury (revision C)
• Space Pilot (Time Pilot bootleg)
• Space Wars
• Speed Freak
• Spike
• Spike’s Spree
• Star Castle
• Star Trek
• Star Wars (set 1)
• Starhawk
• Sundance
• Tac/Scan
• Tailgunner
• Tempest (includes Tempest Tubes romset as an option)
• Tennis for Two
• The Core
• Time Pilot (Konami, Atari & Centuri)
• Tomcat SW (very early proto. of an unfinished Atari project)
• VeCaves
• Veccy Bird v1.5
• Vector Breakout (C.Cowgill’s homebrew on Tempest hw)
• Vector Kong
• Vectrexagon (downloadable edition)
• Voom
• Vortex (Tempest prototype)
• War of the Worlds
• Warrior (includes the ‘wa_4j_v2’ four joystick romset as an option)
• Word War vi
• WebWarp / WebWars
• XInvaders 3D
• XLander
• Y*A*S*I
• ZBlast
• Zektor (revision B)

Native Applications

The VF can run native applications using an abstraction library for vector hardware using a dual-cpu setup where the Vectrex’ 6809 processor is responsible for the Vectrex I/O and the VF processor does the necessary work for the application or game. All emulators with the exception of the PDP-1 emulator use a technique called ‘static binary translation’, the modern source ports are simply normal applications using the vf library.

Modern source ports

• Akalabeth, Dungeons of Doom
• Bloxorz
• Dungeons of Daggorath
• Elite: The New Kind
• Hyperoid
• ICBM 3D
• Rebel Defender
• Tennis for Two
• Voom (a ‘Doom’ level rendering demo)
• Word War vi
• XInvaders 3D
• XLander
• ZBlast

Emulators

Arcade Hardware

Dedicated emulator cartridges for all released and additionally some interesting prototype or different rom revisions of 8-bit vector arcade games have been finished by now. Also the very few homebrew arcade binaries to complete the set. These are not simple, straightforward emulations but try to convert the original game into the best Vectrex experience, possible, as if it were a Vectrex cartridge. So no coining up, all are in an attract mode in freeplay. All use vectrex controllers and output audio via the vectrex speaker. All use hand-optimized input and graphics functionality specific to each game to maximize performance and visual stability. And probably most notable: all output in portrait/vertical mode, even though most arcade games use a horizontal monitor.

All can be played in landscape mode, too, if you are willing to print out a little stand for the Vectrex and put it on its side – ‘orientation’ is a menu option and all emulators support all four orientations.

All have permanent options – for different input mechanisms, graphics, calibration etc. – and almost all have permanent high scores even though the original games frequently do not store the scores. For a few cases – the later Atari games – their nvram is emulated. Since this emulated store takes a few seconds the LED turns red to indicate that the game emulation cannot be exited. One personal note: the Asteroids romset rev.1 high score bug has not been fixed on purpose – the game overwrites a char of the 10th entry – because it does not bother me and after all is a (very small) part of the Asteroids history. I have added ‘speed’ options for Asteroids for a similar reason, some operators did install speed hacks back in the day. And for an Asteroids fan like myself it is also nice to be able to play the faster version for a change.

Please note: the emulators do also need specific, separate romset files which are not provided – these are binary representations of the actual contents found on the arcade pcbs and usually still under copyright . As of firmware V2 first specific MAME ‘.zip’ files are loaded and if not found or the checksum already incorrect all necessary roms are loaded individually from a subfolder. If a load error occurs a more detailed error list is now shown for all expected data. The sizes and checksums of the needed files are now also documented automatically by the build process in a ‘md5_info.txt’ file which is part of a firmware distribution.

I cannot begin to explain how much work this entailed: an emulator for every single romset was developed first, then the tools for a binary translation which was compared per opcode against the normal emulation, then an optimized translation with unnecessary things removed (e.g. cpu flags not used per opcode) and rom space changed into a separate access space, figuring out every access used for banked parts to be able to remove any bank-switching, if possible (it was possible for everything but ESB). Only then did I start compiling it for a Vectrex cart. (the steps before were running on a computer but already input/output was streamed to/from the Vectrex using the vector terminal cart.) and start on the graphics performance and stability. And the audio part meant understanding the games sound system and creating substitute audio for what they were using – and then listening to the output and changing the priorities, volumes and sounds for each effect until it sounded alright.

It was worth it, though, I can now play all my favorite vector games on the Vectrex as close to perfect as possible: Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Space Duel, Demon, Star Trek, Tac/Scan, Red Baron, Battlezone ..and the list goes on. Some even look better than on original hw – esp. the Cinematronics ones since I removed all ‘alternate frame’ drawing and increased the frame rate (optional) – so e.g. Demon is just lovely. But also the Asteroids cabinets I have played recently all showed problems I’d term as ‘must fix’ bugs in my gfx code ! But for a few later ones, esp. Empire Strikes Back, the Vectrex cannot keep up with the vector count and it flickers badly at times. Nothing I can do about this, though, the setup time for vectors is killing it and I believe even bypassing the entire vectrex cpu board wouldn’t help since the monitor already is perfectly matched to this cpu board (read: slow compared to arcade vector monitors). Which to me is not a problem, really, I can run Asteroids perfectly at a much higher refresh rate than the original hw does – and the original 1979 Asteroids is my #1 game.

(later note: I have now witnessed original later Atari arcade pcb’s output more and have to change the previous statement: even Atari hw. flickers, seems to have been admissable back in the 80s.)

Atari

• Aliens (early Tempest prototype romset)
• Alpha One (Major Havoc prototype romset)
• Asterock
• Asteroids Deluxe (romsets rev1/2/3)
• Asteroids (romsets rev1/2/4)
• Battlezone
• Battlezone Plus (hack of Battlezone)
• Black Widow
• Bradley Trainer
• Empire Strikes Back
• Gravitar (version 3)
• Quantum (Rev.2, Rev.1 & Prototype)
• Lunar Battle (‘prototype, later’ of Gravitar)
• Lunar Lander (rev 2)
• Major Havoc (rev 3)
• Major Havoc – the promised end (v0.75)
• Major Havoc – return to Vax
• Red Baron (revised hw)
• Space Duel
• Star Wars (set 1)
• Tempest (includes Tempest Tubes romset as an option)
• Tomcat SW (very early proto. of an unfinished Atari project)
• Vector Breakout (C.Cowgill’s homebrew on Tempest hw)
• Vortex (Tempest prototype)

Cinematronics/Vectorbeam

• Armor Attack
• Barrier
• Boxing Bugs
• Demon
• QB-3
• Rip Off
• Solar Quest
• Speed Freak
• Star Castle
• Starhawk
• Sundance
• Tailgunner
• Warrior (includes the ‘wa_4j_v2’ four joystick romset as an option)
• War of the Worlds

Konami

• Pootan
• Pooyan
• Pooyan (Stern)
• Space Pilot
• Time Pilot
• Time Pilot (Atari)
• Time Pilot (Centuri)

Sega G80 Vector

• Eliminator
• Eliminator 4P
• Space Fury (revision C)
• Star Trek
• Tac/Scan
• Zektor (revision B)

Tehkan

• Bomb Jack

Midway

• Omega Race

Namco

• Bosconian (Namco, new version)
• Bosconian (Midway, new version)
• Galaga (Namco Rev.B)
• Galaga (Namco)
• Galaga (Midway Set 2)
• Galaga (Midway Set 1)
• Gallag
• Gatsbee
• Nebulous Bee
• New Rally-X
• Rally-X

Nintendo

• Vector Kong (vectorized Donkey Kong)

Vectrex Hardware

As of late I have become interested in building a few standalone emulators for Vectrex games, too, to improve them. I know, running Vectrex games emulated on the Vectrex sounds weird but believe me – the automatic visual advantages by using the VF drawing pipeline, also supporting the orientation and localization option, are nice to have. Plus it allows me to implement and test features for the vf library.

• Beluga Dreams
• Berzerk
• Fortress of Narzod
• Marine Fox v1.3
• MineStorm II
• Scramble
• Spike
• Spike’s Spree
• VeCaves
• Veccy Bird v1.5
• Vectrexagon (downloadable edition)
• WebWarp / WebWars

PDP-1

A PDP-1 emulator for a few tapes with visual output: Spacewar! and the Minskytron ‘display hacks’.

Vectrex 6809 games

My six finished Vectrex 6809 games plus Malban’s ‘Release’ are all included in the main page list:

• 2048 Deluxe
• Head On
• Release
• Robot Arena
• Rocks ‘n’ Saucers
• Rocks ‘n’ Saucers Deluxe
• The Core

The dedicated 6809 cart. versions of Alex Herbert’s Protector LE (limited edition) and the combo. cart of Protector and Y*A*S*I are somewhat unique in that these are dynamically generated from Herbert’s 32K binary based on VecFever’s menu and Y*A*S*I’s game options.

Please note: these Vectrex 6809 games only support the normal upright Vectrex orientation and are removed from the main page for other orientations.