In a market filled to the brim with large chunky pixels producing samey graphics, it was very refreshing that the Vectrex tabletop console offered consumers something very unique and different. The original idea was conceived as the 'Mini Arcade' by John Ross and Mike Purvis of Smith Engineering in 1980, who built a prototype unit alongside Gerry Karr, before presenting it to General Consumer Electrics in North America. They agreed to publish it, releasing it in November 1982. The Vectrex would see a 1983 release in both the UK/Europe and Japan, by Milton Bradley and Bandai respectively.

The Vectrex stood apart by not only having a built in Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) screen, but also utilizing vector graphics instead of the usual raster graphics. The 9 inch portrait perspective screen was very similar to the Magnavox Odyssey, released 10 years before, as it uses different acetate overlays to add a dimension of colour to the screen. Behind these overlays is an analogue vector generator, which controls and steers an electron beam through the CRT to create graphics similar to many popular arcade machines of the era. Sound is generated by a General Instrument AY-3-8912 sound chip through a 3 inch speaker. This chip was supposedly unable to produce speech, but it was managed in the game Spike.

Initial sales on the console were compelling, and that prompted Milton Bradley to purchase General Consumer Electrics for international distribution. Despite this initial success, third party games developers never really embraced the system. This, combined with the games industry crash of 1983, meant sales of the Vectrex were well below expected numbers leading to its discontinuation in mid 1984.
​

Early 3D

A note worthy accessory was the 3D imager. This was a pair of goggles that gave games like '3D Crazy Coaster' an illusion of depth but, disappointingly only released in North America. The Vectrex really was a unique machine, different in almost every way to anything else offered on the market.