Cinematronics

Cinematronics was founded in 1975 in El Cajon, California, and became a specialist in vector-graphics arcade games, which used electron beams to draw glowing lines directly on the screen rather than filling in pixels. Its breakthrough came in 1977 with *Space Wars*, a commercial adaptation of the 1962 mainframe game *Spacewar!*, developed using a display and CPU designed by Larry Rosenthal. *Space Wars* was the first commercially successful vector arcade game and introduced a new visual style.

Cinematronics built a distinctive catalog using this technology, including the rotating-fortress shooter *Star Castle*, the tank duel *Armor Attack*, *Rip Off*, and *Solar Quest*. These games featured sharp, luminous vector graphics that distinguished them from the blockier raster-based titles of the time. While the company's hardware was unique and its production volume limited, its visual influence was significant.

In 1983, Cinematronics took a bold step with *Dragon's Lair*, a collaboration with animator Don Bluth that used full laserdisc cartoon footage to replace traditional game graphics, allowing players to guide a hand-drawn knight through a fairy-tale castle. The game was a hit, drawing crowds and charging 50 cents per play, and it briefly suggested a cinematic future for arcades. However, the high cost and unreliability of laserdisc hardware, combined with minimal gameplay depth, led to a quick decline in popularity. As the broader arcade industry declined, Cinematronics struggled to recover and was acquired by Williams in 1987, ending the run of the studio that had pioneered vector graphics and experimented with animated laserdisc technology.