Vectrex

The Vectrex, released in 1982, was like nothing before it and nothing since. Instead of plugging into your television, it came with its own built-in screen, and that screen drew games the way the great arcade machines did: in crisp, glowing vector lines rather than blocky dots, the same technique behind classics like Asteroids.

To add colour to its sharp black-and-white display, you slotted translucent plastic overlays in front of the screen, a charmingly low-tech solution that somehow suited the machine perfectly. Its purpose-built games felt genuinely special, showing off a kind of visual sharpness that ordinary televisions of the day simply couldn't deliver.

Commercially it was another casualty of the 1983 crash, and its life was short. But sheer originality has made it one of the most prized and fondly remembered systems of the whole era. The Vectrex did its own thing completely, and for that its admirers love it all the more.