SIGGRAPH Rocks the 80's Arcade Games

I've been in San Diego for the last few days for this year's SIGGRAPH conference, and while I've been catching some interesting stuff at Emerging Technologies and other exhibitions, I can't resist leading off with a report from the Electronic Theater.

The Electronic Theater is SIGGRAPH's premier showcase for computer-generated films, and it's always kicked off with a live pre-show event. This year, there's a spectacular outbreak of 80's fever; several of the SIGGRAPH community's rock stars have taken to the stage before each screening to play classic vector-graphic arcade games (Asteroids, Tempest and Star Wars).

The games are actually MAME emulations running on PCs, with just a few crucial differences: the controls are actual arcade controls (while the Tempest controller is just a dial, the Star Wars controller is from a Star Wars cabinet) and the screen is the Civic Theater's movie screen. Oh, and this isn't just a rasterized version of the game; Matt Polak of Raven Systems Design customized the software, translating the vector information so that lasers could draw the image on the screen. Best moment from last night: discovering that Jim Blinn still has killer Asteroid moves. Guess all that NASA work still comes in handy.