HP Vectra was a line of business-oriented personal computers manufactured by
Hewlett-Packard (now
HP Inc.
HP Inc. is an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California, that develops personal computers (PCs), printers and related supplies, as well as 3D printing solutions.
It was formed on Nov ...
). It was introduced in October 1985 as HP's first
IBM-compatible PC.
Hewlett-Packard, which originally made its name through selling test equipment, made its move into the computing field in 1967 with
HP 1000/
2100 minicomputers. Further minicomputer and terminal products followed in the coming years, and in 1983, the company finally released a microcomputer, the
HP 150 series. It only lasted two years before HP embraced the IBM PC standard with the Vectra line. Mainly targeted at business and professional fields, the Vectra was HP's top-of-the-line family of computers for over 15 years.
''
InfoWorld
''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its sister ...
'' stated that HP was "responding to demands from its customers for full IBM PC compatibility".
Vectras were not entirely
IBM-compatible, and in the early years, had a considerable amount of non-standard hardware features, including hard disk types, keyboards, and the mouse interface, and corresponding
BIOS
In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the ...
extensions named EX-BIOS,
thus requiring their own custom OEM version of
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...
. Software that used strictly BIOS calls, would work, but anything that performed low-level hardware access, often had problems. Vectras notably failed to pass the most popular compatibility test of the day, which involved running
Lotus 123 and
Microsoft Flight Simulator
''Microsoft Flight Simulator'' is a series of amateur flight simulator programs for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and earlier for MS-DOS and Classic Mac OS. It was an early product in the Microsoft application portfolio and differed s ...
. By the time
486 PCs became commonplace, however, most of the proprietary hardware in HP machines had been dropped.
In 1995, HP added the
Pavilion
In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings:
* It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...
line as a lower-end range designed for the consumer markets (which the company had ignored up to this point), including both desktop PCs and the company's early laptops. In 2002 (following the HP-
Compaq
Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
merger and the release of the VL420 and e-pc 42 models a year prior), the Vectra family was discontinued, and was replaced by the
HP Compaq family the following year.
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
Vectra DOS/Windows (Software) HP Computer Museum
Vectra Business Desktops/Calcs HP Computer Museum
Products introduced in 1985
Vectra
Business desktop computers
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