Vector Graphic's microcomputer: What's in it for you?

Vector Graphic's Memorite "turn-key" microcomputer system (which meant "turn it on and it's ready") is an early entry in a curious sideline of the micro industry - that of the computer that's really a typewriter. Well, at least its printer/terminal was, being a modified electric typewriter.

It ran an Intel 8080A processor on an S-100 bus. Standard-100, or the "Altair bus", was the the most popular bus at the time and found on machines like 1975's <a href="comm_013">Altair 8800</a> - the machine that defined it - and 1976's <a href="comm_015">IMSAI 8080</a> - the machine which copied it and in doing so helped set it as an actual standard. 

Later Vector machines would move onto the Z80, in order to follow where the CP/M operating system was going, but stuck with S-100.  

Reflecting how laid back things were at the time, the "Memorite" trademark wasn't actually filed until 1981[source: http://www.trademarkia.com/memorite-73342417.html], some three years after this machine first appeared.  Memorite later became the name of Vector's bespoke word-processing software which shipped on its Vector 3 and 4 machines.


The actual Memorite system - the modified typewriter, Vector microcomputer and monitor, plus software - was available for $7,950, which is around [[5500|1978]] in [[now]]. Apparently that was half the price of the competition, for a similar bundle.

The typewriter-cum-micro form factor popped up again as late as 1982, with <a href="pcw_1982_12_004a">Durango's 700</a>.