In late 1982, General Consumer Electric (GCE) released the Vectrex for $199. The Vectrex wasn't just your average game console, however, and even to this day there has never been a videogame system quite like it.
The Vectrex was a completely vector graphics based system, hence its name. Vector graphics are the kind of graphics used in such popular games as Asteroids, Battlezone, Space Wars, and Tempest. At that time, most videogames used raster graphics, which utilized pixels. Vector graphics, on the other hand, are basically lines. The Vectrex also had its own nine by eleven-inch monochrome monitor. The system looks a little like a black Macintosh.
To compensate for lack of color and to cut down on flicker, plastic overlays were provided with each game to create some illusion of color (or at least put a pretty little border around the game). The Vectrex shipped with a built-in game, Minesweeper, an Asteroids clone, and one four-button joystick.
In early 1983, Milton-Bradley acquired GCE (and thus, the Vectrex). Milton-Bradley immediately expanded the Vectrex's distribution overseas. By summer, distribution had begun in Europe, but by March '84, sales were cut off.
From there, the downward spiral continued and the Vectrex was gradually phased out as the videogame market collapsed. Eventually, it was discontinued and all rights to the Vectrex and its related materials were returned to the original developers, Smith Engineering. Today, Smith Engineering has graciously condoned the not-for-profit distribution of any of the Vectrex's duplicable materials, including games, overlays and manuals.
Interesting sidenote: Abel & Associates converted the Vectrex into an "entertainment device" for use in malls or pizza parlors. For a quarter, you could have the machine perform the "Luscher Color Test" (yeah, that's a great application for a monochrome machine), in which you would pick colors in the order that they appealed to you. Then the machine would tell you about your personality. Wah hoo.
The Vectrex came close to coming back from the dead in 1988, when Smith Engineering thought about resurrecting the Vectrex as a handheld unit. Unfortunately, Nintendo's Game Boy was released the following year, and the idea was scrapped.
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Woei, 1982
There is no magic.
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