Overview
Traditionally, consoles used sprites - collections of pixels - to make up the images displayed in their games. In the arcades, however, sprite-based games were not the only technology used. Vectors are essentially straight lines, similar to those that make up the polygons in today's 3D games. These were used in games such as Atari's smash-hits "Asteroids" and "Battlezone". In 1982, General Consumer Electronic released the first home console to use vectors - the cunningly named Vectrex.

This was an all-in-one console. The screen was built in, a 9" black and white CRT over which coloured overlays could be placed to give colour (just like the very first console, the Magnavox Odyssey). Under this was a compartment to store the controller for player one. A second controller could be connected for two-player play. Built into the machine was an Asteroids-a-like, Minesweeper, although this was bugged. A revised cartridge of the game (guess what the games came on, kids) was released to anyone who bothered to ask for it.

The machine was originally plugged by GCE. However, the rights were bought by Milton Bradley, who distributed it until the machine's death in the Great Videogames Crash of 1984.

Technical Specifications
CPU: A Motorola 68A09 running at 1.6Mhz
RAM: 1K x 4-BIT 2114
ROM: 8K x 8-BIT 2363
Sound: General Instrument AY-3-8912

Accessories
Controllers: These were arcade-styled, just like the Vectrex itself (the ad department must have had a field day). A joystick with four buttons was the standard controller, one of which could be folded into the machine and stored when not in use - a very clever idea, that. A second joystick could be added for two-player play.
3D Goggles: Thought the Master System's were the first? So did Sega, until these came to their attention. A coloured disk was inserted into these through which one looked at the screen. They gave quite a nice colour 3D effect. They are quite hard to find these days, and as such are valued by collectors.
Light pen: Now you can draw on the screen, too! An interesting addition to the Vectrex, in place of a light phaser. Few programs were released to take advantage of this.
Touch-Sensitive Screen adaptor: Only prototypes of this device exist, and very few of those have been found. Still, this would have been an add-on which would have been nice for its novelty value alone. A "Hangman" game is known to have been developed for use with this device.
Computer Adaptor (with BASIC enterpreter): Why did every 80's console have a computer adaptor? Like every other one promised by manufacturers, the Vectrex's would have allowed programming, word processing, and printing via a planned themal printer, but again only prototypes supposedly exist.
Wafer Tape Drive: The proposed storage medium for the Computer Adaptor, and one which appears to have not even been prototyped. It would have used proprietary "wafers" for saving programs, documents and the like.