Atari’s 1979 arcade game Asteroids uses a vector display to create its sharp monochrome graphics. Instead of drawing a complete screen as a grid of individual pixels, a vector monitor directs the electron beam along lines that form objects such as the player’s ship, asteroids, and saucers.
This technique gives Asteroids its distinctive bright outlines and very crisp shapes. It was especially effective for the game’s simple geometric art, although vector displays could not reproduce the filled, colorful scenes possible on later raster-based hardware. The monitor also contributed to the game’s recognizable visual style in arcades.
Asteroids was designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg and released by Atari in 1979. It became one of Atari’s most successful arcade games. Asteroids is sometimes grouped with ordinary pixel-based games because all video games display images, but its original cabinet specifically used vector hardware.