For all its simplicity, the arcade classic Asteroids was engaging in the extreme ... Atari estimates that the game has earned operators in excess of $500 million since it was released in 1979.

To get around this, [Jurgen] added a custom XY driver board. While the Asteroids game – and other vector Atari games – were designed for a screen with 1 MHz of bandwidth, [Jurgen] found that ...