Back to Vectrex Programming Tutorial Index
Vectors
Vectors in vectrex relation consist of following parts.
- Brightness
- Y position start
- X position start
- length in Y direction
- length in X direction
- scaling factor
Brightness
There are two ways to control brightness. First the
'Intensity', which is a value from 0-$7f (if the 7th bit is set
there is no intensity), 0 means black, $7f means full brightness.
Apart from the intensity you can vary brightness of vectors by
drawing vectors more than ones or for dots leaving the vector
beam for a longer period of time on the same dot. For the last
there is a BIOS variable Vec_Dot_Dwell ($C828), which sets a
counter for how long the vector beam will illuminate the dot.
Positions
The position of vectors are most of the time relative to the
last known position. Somtimes the position is not interesting
when drawing a vector, since it was set some other time, and now
drawing just continues. Positioning with any function is done in
relation to the present scaling factor (TIME). The programer must
keep track of the position, and should zero it now and than. If
the set position is not 'used' within a certain time, the
position will drift (my vectrex drifts allways to +,+ (cartesian
coordinates), a few centimenters per 10,000 cycles!). Position is
given in values from -128 to +127. Most position information is
set with first Y than X postion.
Length of vectors
/ Scale
The length of vectors here means something like the speed with
which the beam will travel across the screen. The scaling is
something like the time, for how long the travelling will be
done. Thus it is easy to see, that travelling with a speed of 10
for a time of 5, which would equal a travelled space of 50, is
about the same as travelling with a speed of 50 for a time of 1,
which also results in a space of 50 to be covered. The only
difference is, that the first will take five times as long as the
second! Length is given in values from -128 to +127. Most length
information is set with first Y than X length.
Next page Last Page
Vectrex Programming Tutorial Index
|