There’s nothing quite like the razor-sharp, analog vector graphics in games like Asteroids, Tempest, Battle Zone, and (my personal fave) Star Wars. They’re difficult to emulate using standard computer software. Our friend James Grahame notes that these fantastic graphics have now made their way into the PCI slot of your computer:
ZVG Vector Arcade Interface [Retro Thing]
And, yes, it’s the real thing:
It connects to an ECP-compatible parallel printer port and drives any analog X/Y Monitor including any dual channel oscilloscope that can be set to an X/Y mode.
The interface does both color and black and white vector imagery. It’s fully compatible with the popular MAME emulator, in DOS mode. Your best bet is probably to build a super-cheap PC with standard PCI slots (not PCIe). You can use the other slot for the superb HardSID PCI card, which will give you the sounds of the Commodore 64’s SID synthesizer. (Note that plans to import the HardSID by none other than James ultimately failed, but you can still order it from its European distributor.)
Vector graphics and C64 sound? Yeah, that should be heaven.
Of course, at those rare moments you can tear yourself away from the Star Wars game, you can use this for your own custom graphics. There’s an SDK and documentation at the official site, and source for everything.