As a kid, it was incredibly exciting to see in person! It was pretty small (had a 9" CRT) and $200 (~$650 today). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex

A Vectrex wasn't prohibitively expensive, but, even for its time, vector graphics seemed a bit primitive*.

1980s TV gaming consoles may not have had high resolution, but they were less visually monotonous than glowing lines on black.

* Consider that Asteroids is the only vector-based game listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_in_video_games

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_(video_game) was already three years old by the time Vectrex hit the market

$199 when it was introduced in 1982. It was discounted a couple times after that after Milton Bradley bought them and got down to $100. That's a pretty decent price considering the Atari 2600 debuted in 1977 at $199.

It was basically a whole arcade machine, just a lot smaller :-)

The Vectrex was the first games console I ever tried. My parents could not afford one so I never got one...until a couple of years ago when I won an online action. It's amazing and the new developed products for it makes it even more amazing.