Vector Graphic Inc.: Assembled! Tested! The same 8K static memory for the same price!

This is an early advert for Vector Graphic, the company formed in 1976 by two housewives - Lore Harp and Carole Ely - along with Lore Harp's husband Bob Harp, who had been selling similar 8K boards from his garage.

In modern terms, and in common with [=byte_1977-01-00_010|other memory boards of the time], these were fantastically expensive - 8K for $275, or about [[184|1977]] in [[now]] money equates to around [[23466|1977]] per megabyte or about [[25|1977]] million per gigabyte. 

Even a mobile phone comes with a few GB as standard.

Note also how just 8K in memory required a total of 72 chips and 5 other components - with linear scaling, a 1GB board would require nearly 10 million chips occupying around 6,300m<sup>2</sup> - assuming that 8K fits on a board 30cm x 15cm.

The source of Vector's memory chips was Fairchild Semiconductor, a company formed by the famous "traitorous eight" - a group of engineers who had been working with transistor inventor William Shockley but left, citing "management-style issues", to form their own company with the financial backing of Fairchild Camera and Instrument.

Fairchild Semiconductor in turn spawned many major Silicon Valley companies - referred to as Fairchildren in a 1978 BBC documentary[source: "Now the chips are down", Horizon, BBC, 31st March 1978] - in particular Intel, AMD, National Semiconductor and LSI, as one by one the traitorous eight left to start their own new businesses.