website/content/museum/vector-graphics-vector-3-vip.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Vector Graphics Vector 3 (VIP)	Computers	Professional Computer	U.S.A.	1976	Intel 8080 then Zilog Z80A	name image company company_name specs tabs forum_thread photos links related oc_id source Vector 3 (VIP) /media/museum/photos/vectorgraphics_vector3_system_1b.jpg /companies/vector-graphics Vector Graphics label value NAME Vector 3 (VIP) label value MANUFACTURER Vector Graphics label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN U.S.A. label value YEAR 1976 or 1977 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE None label value KEYBOARD Full stroke 72 keys with numeric keypad label value CPU Intel 8080 then Zilog Z80A label value SPEED 1 MHz (8080) up to 6 MHz (Z80) label value RAM 56 KB label value ROM Unknown label value TEXT MODES 80 chars. x 25 lines label value GRAPHIC MODES None label value COLORS Monochrome label value SOUND beeper label value I/O PORTS 1 x Serial RS-232, 3 x Parallel ports label value BUILT IN MEDIA External 315 KB FDD unit label value OS CP/M label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in power supply unit label value PRICE From $3850 photos links 778 title subtitle text image SYSTEM /media/museum/photos/vectorgraphics_vector3_system_2.jpg title subtitle text image FLOPPY DRIVES UNIT /media/museum/photos/vectorgraphics_vector3_fdunit_1.jpg title subtitle text image INSIDE #1 /media/museum/photos/vectorgraphics_vector3_inside_2.jpg title subtitle text image INSIDE #2 Notice the S-100 boards mounted vertically. /media/museum/photos/vectorgraphics_vector3_inside_1.jpg title subtitle text image VECTOR DUST COVER /media/museum/photos/vectorgraphics_vector3_dustcover_1.jpg title url text Vector Graphics 1976 - 1984 http://www.vectorgraphics.org.uk Web site dedicated to Vector Graphics systems title url text VECTOR-GRAPHIC List http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=VECTOR-GRAPHIC mailing list for Vector Graphic computers /museum/vector-graphics-mz /museum/vector-graphics-vector-1 /museum/vector-graphics-vector-4 797 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230312224042/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=797 2023-03-12

The Vector Graphics VIP was also called Vector 3 because it was based around the Vector 3 terminal which had an integral 72 key keyboard and 12" video screen.

The unit had a six slot S-100 bus board which came with a Z80A processor board fitted with 56 KB RAM. The board also had a serial interface and three 8-bit parallel I/O ports. The VIP configuration originally came out with a 340k Micropolis Floppy Disk drive. Later this was a 640k Tandon hard sectored floppy drive.
Not shown configurations had a dual floppy drive or, for the 3005, a 5 megabyte Seagate ST506 drive.

The Vector 3 ran CP/M operating system and all its associated professionnal software. It came with Memorite III word processor, Execuplan (a form of planning program like Visicalc), and the Microsoft BASIC interpreter.
Peachtree Accounting was available on Vector machines as well, probably the first implementation on a microcomputer.

Anecdotally, Vector Graphics Inc of California was started by two housewives in the late '70s. They were called Lore Harp and Carole Ely. The third founder, Robert Harp, was technical director. The Harp's were divorcing, which ultimately brought the company down.
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More information from Dennis Wingo who used to work at Vector Graphic:
The CPU was housed in an 18 slot (the MZ box) S-100 Chassis designed by Vector. In late 1977 early 78 Vector went to the Z80A processor on a single board. The boot ROM (2k) resided on the Prom/RAM card. Later versions updated the PROM/RAM card to 8k using 4 kbyte PROMS and one 1k of Fast Static RAM for the processor Stack. The processor speed went from 1 MHz to 4 MHz during that period.

in early 1981 Vector engineer Corey Selby redesigned the Processor Card, PROM/RAM card and Parallel I/O card into the ZCB or Z80 Single Board Computer. It had a 4 MHz, later a 6 MHz Z80B CPU. The ZCB incorporated two serial ports via and 8251A serial I/O controller. It added an Intel 8020 24 bit parallel I/O port controller, 4k of PROM and 1k of Static RAM.

Later this design was integrated into the motherboard of the Vector 4 Single Board Computer along with an Intel 8088 that we built and released starting in 1982.

The VIP System shown above had a six slot S-100 card integrated behind the picture tube behind the Mindless Terminal (MT) CRT. In this six slot system there was a ZCB a Floppy Disk Controller Card or an FD/HD (Floppy Disk/Hard Disk) (Single floppy version shown above) controller. Also plugged into the S-100 motherboard was a 56k DRAM Card, and an 20 X 24 Memory mapped video card with 2k of Fast SRAM (Flashwriter II Card).

In very late versions of the Vector 3 series was an FD/HD card with a ten megabyte Seagate ST506 interface hard drive. This system was also connected to other computers via an 750 kilobit token passing Local Area Network (LinkNet). The LinkNet card allowed up to 256 different Vector Computers to be hooked together into a seamless net where you had shared disk and printer resources. This system was a pioneer in the computer industry as the first low cost microcomputer system to have this capability.

There were several interesting configurations of the vector system.

Ullrich Moser adds:
I had pretty much this computer with a 5 MB hard disk built in.
Execuplan was a fully functioning spreadsheet and if remember correctly, better than Visicalc.
My machine had Magic Wand as word processor.
One could buy a (terribly expensive) sheet feeder and write mass mailings just like with a Wang machine for a fraction of the price.