Jay Smith III was hired by Mattel in the 1970s to develop games using liquid crystal displays. After creating an initial football game, Jay Smith took responsibility for sourcing suppliers for LCD screens, which at the time were limited to a few active points to display numbers and digits. When he obtained a screen with a resolution of 16 lines by 16 pixels, Jay Smith came up with the idea for the world’s first console with interchangeable cartridges, a full decade before the famous Game Boy : the Microvision. It was a massive success, with 1.5 million units sold despite its limited game library of only about a dozen titles.
Jay Smith’s team took less than a year to design, manufacture, and market the Microvision, as competition in the toy industry was fierce during the late 1970s. The success of the Microvision proved that video games were the next big revolution in the toy industry—a revolution manufacturers could not afford to miss.
Challenges of LCD Technology and a New Vision
For Jay Smith, however, Liquid-Crystal Display technology (LCD) was not yet advanced enough to create a true home video game console. Imagining the integration of a cathode-ray tube (CRT) into a console, he quickly realized the limitations of pixel resolution, which was a significant hurdle in the early 1980s. This was a challenge faced even by industry giants like Atari and Japan’s Sega.
The brilliant idea that set Jay apart was to turn to an oscilloscope screen—monochrome and vector-based—to equip the Vectrex and enable its game graphics. Jay Smith envisioned a bright future for his machine, confident that his technical choices were the best for ensuring smooth and fast gameplay. He often emphasized that the decision to use vector graphics was driven by two key factors:
- Zooming: Smooth scaling of objects.
- Object Rotation: Easily achievable using vector coordinates, unlike the complex processes required for pixel-based graphics.
Similarly, his decision to include the game MineStorm with the base console, allowing players to enjoy the Vectrex without purchasing additional games, was a powerful idea that boosted its appeal. By the time the Vectrex was announced at its first Consumer Electronics Show in 1982, Jay Smith’s team had already developed around 20 games for the console.
A Legacy of Innovation
Jay Smith was not only the founder of his own engineering company but also the creator of Western Technologies Inc., the company behind the development of both the Vectrex and the Microvision. Western Technologies also pioneered speech synthesis technology and various other software innovations.
Decades after the Vectrex’s release, Jay Smith remains immensely proud of the console’s enduring appeal to gamers. Its unique design, exceptional screen contrast, and vector-based technology continue to fascinate new generations, ensuring the Vectrex’s place as a beloved and iconic piece of gaming history.
