Games - Vectrex

	Games - Vectrex

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; no other console before or after the Vectrex had a comparable configuration, and no other non-portable game console had a monitor of it's own (integrated). It was released in late 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.

Trivia

While it is widely believed that the Nintendo 64
was the first home console to include an analog controller, the Vectrex (and Atari 5200
) preceded the N64 by over a decade.

Even today there are new games in development by hobby programmers. Also new hardware (for example VecVox - 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.

Technical Specifications

Circuit Board

CPU : Motorola 68A09 @ 1.6 MHz
RAM: 1 KB (two 4-bit 2114 chips)
ROM: 8 KB (one 8-bit 2363 chip)

Sound

Sound: General Instruments AY-3-8912
3" magnet-driven speaker

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.

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.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Vectrex ]

Searches on eBay

vectrex