The Vectrex is a vector display-based home video game console - the only one ever designed and released for the home market, that was developed by Smith Engineering and manufactured and sold by General Consumer Electronics. It was first released for the North America market in November 1982 and then Europe and Japan in 1983. Originally produced by General Consumer Electronics, it was later licensed to Milton Bradley after they acquired the company. Bandai released the system in Japan.
A Vectrex and its controller
European release Vectrex with Star Ship game and overlay
Vectrex 3-D Imager
Games came supplied with color overlay sheets to compensate for the limitations of the screen.
A vector monitor, vector display, or calligraphic display is a display device used for computer graphics up through the 1970s. It is a type of CRT, similar to that of an early oscilloscope. In a vector display, the image is composed of drawn lines rather than a grid of glowing pixels as in raster graphics. The electron beam follows an arbitrary path, tracing the connected sloped lines rather than following the same horizontal raster path for all images. The beam skips over dark areas of the image without visiting their points.
A 24-hour clock displayed on an oscilloscope configured as a vector monitor in X-Y mode with dual R2R DACs to generate the analog voltages
A free software Asteroids-like video game played on an oscillograph configured in X-Y mode