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 photos links comments 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 $3850 photos links title subtitle text image SYSTEM /media/museum/photos/vectorgraphics_vector3_system_2.jpg title subtitle text image FLOPPY DRIVES UNIT /media/museum/photos/vectorgraphics_vector3_fdunit_1.jpg title subtitle text image INSIDE #1 /media/museum/photos/vectorgraphics_vector3_inside_2.jpg title subtitle text image INSIDE #2 Notice the S-100 boards mounted vertically. /media/museum/photos/vectorgraphics_vector3_inside_1.jpg title subtitle text image VECTOR DUST COVER /media/museum/photos/vectorgraphics_vector3_dustcover_1.jpg title url text Vector Graphics 1976 - 1984 http://www.vectorgraphics.org.uk Web site dedicated to Vector Graphics systems title url text VECTOR-GRAPHIC List http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=VECTOR-GRAPHIC mailing list for Vector Graphic computers author date text Samuel Lilly (USA) Tuesday 6th October 2020 I have one of these machines. The keyboard need new pads. It has 64k but needs a cpm or basic boot disk. How do I make or get one? author date text Jerri Kohl (NEK, Vermont, US) Saturday 8th September 2018 I have read conflicting information about whether this model had any graphics modes (or even a redefinable character set). Can anyone clear this up? I''m sure Dennis Wingo could. author date text jon (usa ) Monday 12th March 2018 i have one and all i get is a screen that says vector graphic screen version 4.0 i dont know how to make the floppy drive spin when i hit the b key i get boot floppy but nothing at all anyone know how to operate one of them author date text Ken Williamson (Thailand) Sunday 11th September 2016 I bought a Vector 3 with two floppy drives and a Spinwriter printer that was hard wired to the I/O board with a 1" diameter cable. If you moved the system, everything had to be carried together. I bought to do spreadsheets. Execuplan was a little buggy$ you had to do column and row operations in a certain order or you started over. But, the most fun I had was adding a 32K memory board in order to run an early medical billing software application. You had to cut a trace from the new board to the BUS then solder a jumper between the two boards, which yielded a total of 56K of memory, I think. Latter I became a CompuPro Dealer, which was an awesome machine. author date text Barry Coopersmith (Florida) Thursday 18th June 2015 I have a vector 3 computer with dual 400k floppy drives and cords. I also have software, Memorite word processor, Payroll, spread sheet and general ledger. If anyone is interested, give me a holler at above e-mail. .... Barry author date text Barry Coopersmith (Florida) Thursday 18th June 2015 I have a vector 3 computer with dual 400k floppy drives and cords. I also have software, Memorite word processor, Payroll, spread sheet and general ledger. If anyone is interested, give me a holler at above e-mail. .... Barry author date text Andrew Lynch (Ohio) Sunday 18th November 2007 The is a mailing list for Vector Graphic computers if you are interested in them. All VG related topics welcome. Please join us at: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=VECTOR-GRAPHIC Thanks! Andrew Lynch author date text van Treek, Mike (Belgium) Monday 20th August 2007 When I was 11 years old I follow my first computer formation, in Rancagua (Chile). The Vector 3 was the first PC that I use, in 1986. It's funny to see it after 21 years... in a museum. I getting older? author date text Thomas Hardy (USA) Friday 6th July 2007 1982 - I was using this computer at a magazine publishers. We used DBASE2, Memorite III and were connected via Centronics interface, to a large, wide, noisy Mannesman Tally dot-matrix printer for printing subscription labels every month. If I can remember rightly, we either had an external 5 or a 10 megabyte hard drive. Backups were very, very slow every month with the boxes of 5 1/4" floppy disks. author date text Mike (Rock Hill, SC) Wednesday 4th October 2006 "Vector Graphics" was the name of the company, not the name of this particular computer. author date text Stephen Knotts (USA) Monday 29th November 2004 Why was it called "Vector Graphics" if it has no graphic modes? Can some expert answer my question? OK Bye author date text Glyn Cowan (Glasgow Scotland uk) Tuesday 11th March 2003 I think I had one of these I still have the large folder with the operating instructions and imformation on how the various programms that came with it worked. The reason I am not sure is that although mine looked the same it had a duel 5 1/4 inch disc drives in a seperate unit /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.