Technology Throwback Thursday : Vector 1

Vector Graphics was said to have a stronger cabinet and a well-designed power supply. To reduce selling price, front panel didn’t offered any switch or control led. In its basic version, the computer could be connected to a tape recorder and a serial terminal and offered a bootstrap ROM monitor.

Carole Ely and Lore Harp with their pride and joy, the Vector 1. In 1976, Vector Graphic designed and sold static RAM and other expansion cards for S-100 computers. The company was run by two women – Lore Harp (founder and chairman) and Carole Ely. Bob Harp, Lore’s husband, was the design engineer.

Eventually they released an entire computer based on their technology – the Vector 1.

The Vector 1 was unique for the time because it has a custom PROM/RAM board installed. Upon boot-up, the user is greeted with these option:
A – ASCII memory dump
D – HEX memory dump
G – Go to and execute program
L – Load program from Tarbell tape cassette interface and execute
P – Program memory from terminal
R – Record Tarbell tape
T – Test any block of memory, using a pseudorandom number sequence
V – Verify cassette tape

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