For those that have no idea of a vector vs. raster display - a Quick explination: Most game displays use what is called a raster display where the electron gun that displays pictures on the screen (such as a Television set) scans down the screen horizontally anywhere from 30 to 60 times a second, drawing small blocks called pixels. Vector graphics have the gun draw to exact locations only using x and y coordinates. Because of this, they obviously require special electronics for this type of display mechanism. The plus side is that the lines and details drawn are much cleaner and crisper than it's raster counterpart. This provides for great wireframe 3D effects. The bottom side is that color graphics become a bit more complicated, and solid graphics (non-wireframe) are next to impossible.

Vector graphics had been in use with coinop arcade games in the late 1980's, starting with Cinematronics Space Wars in 1978. Probably the most famous vector graphic game is of course Atari's Asteroids.

In 1981, Mike Purvis and John Ross at Western Technologies/Smith Engineering, were trying to come up with a way to use the lot of cheap cathode ray tube (CRT) screen that WT/SE had picked up recently from a liquidator/surpluss store. They came up with the idea for a small all in one home gaming system using Vector graphics. Jay Smith, head of Engineering, gave the go ahead and headed the project, which became known as the Mini Arcade.

By Spring, 1981, the toy company Kenner had optioned the Mini Arcade, and it was planned to have only a 5" black and white tube. However by July, it had decided not to. However, by September of that year a company by the name of General Consumer Electronis (GCE) had decided to lease the Mini Arcade after GCE's president, Greg Krakauer saw the concept and early workings and decided it was a potential goldmine. However, a few modifications were made - for example screen was increased to 9". The Home Arcade name was still kept.

By Fall of 1981, the work began on the actual prototype with the goal being the hardware and 12 games completed by June of 1982. John Ross designed the hardware, Gerry Karr and John Hall started the system ROM (codenamed the "Executive").

By January of 1982 a few more changes occured. The Vectrex was originally supposed to have a 6502 processor, but it was decided this was to slow. So they changed it to a 6809. Also, John Hall left to work on one of the 12 games to be done (later Called Minestorm). So, Gerry Karr continued on alone and eventually started over from scratch, renaming the system ROM to RUM for Run Time Monitor. He eventually brought in other people to contribute, such as Duncan Muirhead who wrote the RUM's trig routines not long after joining the company that month.

Most of the games were to be licensed re-leases or copies of already existing coinop games. WT/SE had struck up a licensing agreement with well the well known vector coinop company Cinemetronics, that included full access to each other's games. Full source code was available to the Vectrex programmers, and Cinematronics had the option to release any original Vectrex games it liked as full coinop versions (which it eventually did with Cosmic Chasm).

Programmed by people like Paul Newell, John Hall, Mark Indicator, Bill Hawkins and Tom Sloper, development was tricky at first. Because there was no finished Vectrex console, development at first was done on oscilloscopes driven by prototype boards, and a 6809 processor simulator. According to Bill Hawkins, the only real problem with this method was the aspect ratio - since the oscilloscope was square and the Vectrex screen was to be rectangular. After about two months when the Vectrex console prototype had actually been developed, development was moved to S100 based CPM computer with two 8" floppy drives - one for the CPM operating system and one for the data.

By April, Scramble, Mine Storm (an Asteroids clone), Berzerk, Rip Off and Star Trek were completed. Work is immediately started on other games such as the Vectrex original Cosmic Chasm. Conceptually designed by Jeff Corsiglia, and programmed by Bill Hawkins, this turned out to be the only game converted in to a coinop by the Cinematronics agreement. According to Bill, it only took him six weeks to do Cosmic Chasm (unlike the three months and 12 boxes of disks to do Rip Off) because while the rest of the programmers were out of town one weekend he stole two more drives from another programmer's setup.

PLASTIC OVERLAYS

Somewhere along the line, it was decided that color overlays would be used. Overlays, which originated in coinops, served a multitude of purposes. In the early through late 70's, coinops were in black and white. If you wanted color, you would literally affix colored cellophane strips to the monitor screen, such as was done in Atari's Breakout or Taito's Space Invaders. Likewise, if the playfield was to be to complicated to draw (be it in detail, or a color problem) because of the graphics limitations of the time, overlays could be used to render permanent backgrounds or give ambiance. Such as in the asteroid background in Atari's Asteroid Deluxe, or the stairwell in Cinematronic's Warrior. Still other overlays would be on the protective plastic screen itself instead of the monitor, and add anything from exciting borders to game instructions. It was decided for reasons of all of the above, that the Vectrex system would use overlays, and Miva Filoseta was given the job of designing them. The problem's with game designing would occur here however, because of someone's decision to have Miva do the overlays only after the game was finished. Because of this, none of the programmers would make their game with any sort of an overlay in mind. And more often than not, Miva would design the overlays with lettering and such that would cover part of the game area. So, the programmer would then have to go back in and try and alter the game to account for this. As Tom Sloper and Bill Hawkings related during their Classic Gaming Expo 2000 keynote address, this created a big rift between Miva and the programmers.

Lenny Carlson was then brought in to add music and and sounds to many of the original games.

Text & information comes from the Museum of Home Video Gaming and www.vectrexmuseum.com.