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The Vectrex is an 8-bit video game console developed by General Consumer Electric (GCE) and later bought by Milton Bradley Company. The Vectrex is unique in that it utilized vector graphics drawn on a monitor that was integrated in the console. It was released in November 1982 at a retail price of $199. As the video game market declined and then crashed, the Vectrex exited the market in early 1984.
Smith Engineering briefly considered designing a handheld version of the device in 1988, though the success of the Nintendo Game Boy made such a project too risky. In the mid-1990s, Smith Engineering condoned the duplication of the Vectrex system image and cartridges for non-commercial uses and has expressed joy to see that it has still-thriving developer and user communities.
Unlike other video game consoles which connected to TVs to display raster graphics, the Vectrex included its own monitor which displayed vector graphics. The monochrome Vectrex used screen overlays to give the illusion of color, and also to reduce the severity of the inherent flickering caused by the vector monitor. At the time many of the most popular arcade games used vector displays, and GCE was looking to set themselves apart from the pack by selling high-quality versions of games like Space Wars and Armor Attack. The system even contained a built in game, the Asteroids-like Minestorm.
The two peripherals for the Vectrex were a light pen and 3D imager.
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Trivia
While it is widely believed that the Nintendo 64 was the first home console to include an analog controller, the Vectrex preceded the N64 by over a decade. The Atari 5200 also had an analog joystick, but it was not self-centering.
Even today there are new games in development by homebrew video game programmers. Also new hardware (for example VecVox, a speech synthesizer) is available.
Newport Cigarettes at one point commissioned a customized version of Web Wars. It just featured "Newport Cigarettes Presents" on the title screen and trophy room screen. Bill Hawkins finished the coding which was sent to Newport, but it isn't known what happened with that, if anything.
The liquor company, Mr. Boston, gave out a limited number of customized cartridges of Clean Sweep. The box had a Mr. Boston sticker on it. The overlay was basically the regular Clean Sweep overlay with the Mr. Boston name, logo, and % proof/copyright info running up either side. The game itself had custom text, and the player controlled a top hat rather than a vacuum.
The game built into the Vectrex, Minestorm, would crash at level 13. Consumers who complained to the company received a replacement cartridge in the mail. Entitled "MineStorm II", it was the fixed version of the Vectrex's built in game. However, not many wrote to the company about it, making MineStorm II one of the rarest cartridges for the Vectrex system.
Was the first system to offer a 3D peripheral (the Vectrex 3D Imager), predating the Sega Master System's SegaScope 3D by about six years.
Cosmic Chasm has the distinction of being the first arcade video game based on a home console video game.
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Circuit Board
RAM: 1 KB (two 4-bit 2114 chips)
ROM: 8 KB (one 8-bit 2363 chip)
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Sound
3" magnet-driven speaker
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Display
CRT : Samsung 240RB40 B&W television (9 x 11 inches). Many myths exist about a custom "vector" CRT. The CRT was a standard 240mm (diagonal) black-and-white television picture tube and magnetic deflection yoke, and can be easily replaced with comparable black-and-white television components. However, rather than being driven by a conventional sawtooth deflection system (to generate a raster like a blank TV or monitor has), the Vectrex drove the deflection yoke with a digital-to-analog converter for each of the horizontal and vertical windings on the yoke, allowing dot position to be swept as the software needed. The CRT's beam was simply turned on and off under software control; to make a line on the display appear brighter, it would simply have to be refreshed more often. Unlike a regular TV set or monitor which has a stable horizontal stage to drive the flyback transformer, an independent oscillator was used to drive a regular television flyback transformer. Much of this adaptation of inexpensive off-the-shelf television components is also found in vector-based arcade machines like Asteroids.
Display size could theoretically be increased, but would involve a massive redesign of the horizontal and vertical amplifiers, flyback oscillator and transformer, and beam control circuits.
No external TV receiver hookup is needed, provided for, or even possible without mapping the display to some form of rasterized video memory.
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3D Imager
The 3-D imager spins a disk which is 1/2 black and 1/2 colored bands that radiate from the centre (Usually red, green and blue) between your eyes and the vectrex screen. The Vectrex is synchronized to the rotation of the disk (or vice versa) and draws vectors corresponding to a particular color and/or a particular eye. Therefore only one eye will see the vectrex screen and its associated images (or color) at any one time while the other will see nothing.
A single object that does not lie on the plane of the monitor (i.e. in front of or into the monitor) is drawn at least twice to provide information for each eye. The distance between the duplicate images and whether the right eye image or the left eye image is drawn first will determine where the object will appear to "be" in 3-D space. The 3-D illusion is also enhanced by adjusting the brightness of the object (dimming objects in the background). Spinning the disk at a high enough speed will fool your eyes/brain into thinking that the multiple images it is seeing are two different views of the same object. This creates the impression of 3-D and color.
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Supported Games
3D Lord of the Robots (homebrew)
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Screenshot/Overlay Gallery
Image:Vectrex_armor.gif|Armor Attack
Image:vectrex_Berzerk.gif|Berzerk
Image:Vectrex_blitz.gif|Blitz! Action Football
Image:Vectrex_Spinball.gif|Spinball
Image:Vectrex_fonarzod.gif|Fortress of Narzod
Image:vectrex_hyper.gif|Hyperchase Auto Race
Image:Vectrex_Mine.gif|Mine Storm
Image:vectrex_pole.gif|Pole Position
Image:Vectrex_spike.gif|Spike
Image:vectrex_Scramble.gif|Scramble
Image:Vectrex_Starcastle.gif|Star Castle
Image:Vectrex_webwars.gif|Web Warp / Web Wars
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Original
Engine Analyzer (requires light pen)
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Unreleased Prototypes
Mail Plane (requires light pen)
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Home Brew
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