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what was my role?
this was a solo project which made use of a wireframe renderer, specifically tailored towards drawing visuals on analog oscilloscopes using the X/Y mode with high-frequency audio signals. a wrapper for this renderer exists for the Unity game engine, which i made use of and have updated with the newest version of the plugin, alongside more thorough instructions for other individuals interested in trying something like this themselves.


what is it about?
at its core, i wished to inform people about this unusual yet captivating form of graphics generation, presented as a simple, endless 3D maze game where an arcade joystick was the sole input method. i was largely inspired by vector-based arcade games such as Tempest, the Vectrex home console, and “oscilloscope music” (photosensitivity warning) in the making of this project.

the most unexpected journey with this project was the realization of several different audio requirements for oscilloscope X/Y experiments such as this one. while i don’t intend to do a full writeup here, i started out using my laptop’s built-in audio hardware (resulting in totally unintelligible messes of vector spaghetti due to AC coupling and ringing), a CX31993-based DAC (significant improvement thanks to DC-coupling, though it still had some ringing issues), and finally yet another purpose-built solution which, understandably, worked the best out of them all. i will likely fork the repository above since it, like the wireframe rendering API, does not provide pre-compiled binaries.

and to bring it back to my central theme of legacy/”obsolete” technology re-use, the analog oscilloscope featured in this project was saved from being crushed into dust. yes it works fine!


images - close up


a close up of the idle screen, which reads “3D MAZE” while 3 cubes rotate endlessly in the center. whenever a user presses one of the arcade buttons or moves the joystick, the screen transitions into a randomly selected maze.
a close up of one of the mazes’ many corners as rendered by the oscilloscope itself. moving the joystick up or down would make the view move forward or backward, while the left and right directions would turn the user respectively (otherwise known as “tank controls”).
the “winning icon”, a rotating polyhedron which would show a winning screen when the user ran into the object.
a close up of the winning screen, displayed after a user discovered the winning polyhedron. it reads “YOU WON” while fireworks shoot randomly in front of the text. after 8 seconds, another maze is randomly selected, and the game goes on until the user stops inputting directions for 30 seconds (thus returning to the idle screen).

images - on location


a photo showing the setup of the oscilloscope and arcade controller. the STM32-driven DAC and computer outputting the wireframe data lived hidden in plain sight, underneath the sheet the scope sat on.
a photo of a user traversing through one of the mazes, manuvering the joystick while looking past a corridor.
a photo of another user successfully completing a maze, getting to the winning screen.
a group of four crowd around the oscilloscope as someone travels through the maze. i must admit, i did not expect anywhere near as many people to approach the oscilloscope for its ~5 hour run! 
©2026 isiah f