When I learned computer graphics in 1983, the textbook was about half vector graphics. The state of the art was hardware “display lists” that you loaded with X,Y coordinates and the hardware refreshed the screen by itself.
Raster graphics rely on cheap RAM, which came on us exponentially and rapidly obsoleted all sort of things…like the entire field of vector graphics hardware.
At CMU the CS department ran on many shared VAXen, and some of them had a raster frame buffer. They ran coax video cables from a VAX to multiple offices, with a monitor in each office, all displaying the same thing. You had to sign up for time on the frame buffer. I know this is unimaginable in 2021!
BTW, I am definitely going to hook up my Vectrex to an RPi. TIL, thank you!
but the most common laser graphic systems use the soundcard output from a PC which is bandwidth limited plus there is inertia on the mirror and instead of the nice straight lines of the Vectrex you get curves that don't really turn me on.
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[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 272 ms ] threadRaster graphics rely on cheap RAM, which came on us exponentially and rapidly obsoleted all sort of things…like the entire field of vector graphics hardware.
At CMU the CS department ran on many shared VAXen, and some of them had a raster frame buffer. They ran coax video cables from a VAX to multiple offices, with a monitor in each office, all displaying the same thing. You had to sign up for time on the frame buffer. I know this is unimaginable in 2021!
BTW, I am definitely going to hook up my Vectrex to an RPi. TIL, thank you!
https://www.laserfocusworld.com/optics/article/16567973/prod...
but the most common laser graphic systems use the soundcard output from a PC which is bandwidth limited plus there is inertia on the mirror and instead of the nice straight lines of the Vectrex you get curves that don't really turn me on.