The first computer Vector Graphic, Inc. produced was the Vector 1. This computer was an S-100 clone, and had several serial RS-232 interfaces to connect dumb terminals to it. The machine itself had no text or graphic capabilities and was operated through terminals. The machine came with 1kByte of memory, which could be expanded to 64kByte. It used CP/M as the operating system, giving it effectively 56kByte of RAM to work with.

Several models of the Vector 1 were available, all the same computer, but in different configurations. The Vector 1+ had a floppy disk drive, and the Vector 1++ had two built in. The machine ran at 2MHz, used the 8080 as it's CPU, which in later models was changed to the compatible Z80. The Vector 1 came as a kit for self assembly or as an assembled machine.

Vector Graphic, Inc. started out by creating expansion cards for S-100 computer systems. Their first products were an 8kByte RAM card and a High Resolution Graphics card, HRG, which offered a resolution of 256x256 pixels.

The first computer Vector Graphic produced was the Victor-1, an S-100 clone. The company was founded by Bob Harp, his wife Lore, and their neighbor Carol Ely. Bob designed the first Vector 1 system, while his wife and the neighbor ran the company. Within four years their revenue exceeded $3M per month.

The company expanded their line of Vector computers up to the Vector 5. Unfortunately Bob and Lore believed that their success was unstoppable, even in the early 1980s. They made their company public and sold stock in it. But the company was plagued by bad decisions. A huge number of Vector 3 computers had been produced while the marketing department already started advertising the Vector 4. This caused consumers to wait with the purchase until the 4 came out. Bob and Lore got a divorce which caused a shake up in the leadership of the company and Vector Graphics filed for bacnkruptcy in the late 1980s.

CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers), created by Gary Kildall in 1974 for Intel 8080-based systems, was the first widely adopted microcomputer operating system to establish a standard software platform. At its core, CP/M was divided into three layers: the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) for hardware-dependent routines, the BDOS (Basic Disk Operating System) for file and device abstractions, and the CCP (Console Command Processor) for the command-line interface. This modular design meant CP/M could be ported to a wide variety of 8-bit systems simply by rewriting the BIOS layer, while the BDOS and CCP remained binary-compatible. This allowed application developers to target a single OS API rather than custom hardware interfaces, which was a radical departure from the fragmented landscape of early microcomputers.

Memory management in CP/M was constrained by the 8080 and Z80’s 64 KB address space, so the operating system was designed to occupy only the top portion of memory. The BDOS and CCP were typically loaded into high memory, leaving a contiguous block of low memory available for transient programs (user applications). Applications were written to expect a fixed TPA (Transient Program Area), with the starting address varying slightly depending on how much memory was available after BIOS/BDOS were loaded. This simple scheme avoided the need for virtual memory or sophisticated protection mechanisms, but it limited multitasking: CP/M was strictly a single-tasking environment. Program overlays and clever memory swapping techniques were sometimes used by developers to fit larger applications into the available TPA, especially for compilers and database software.

Application support was the main driver of CP/M’s dominance. Its standardization around the BDOS interface meant that word processors, assemblers, compilers (notably for C, Pascal, and BASIC), and business applications could run on hundreds of different hardware platforms with minimal modification. Programs were distributed as .COM files—binary images loaded directly into the TPA without relocation—which simplified the loader at the cost of flexibility. Libraries like Digital Research’s PL/I subset and third-party toolchains extended CP/M into a development platform, while the vast ecosystem of utilities (from editors like ED to debuggers and communications software) established it as the de facto operating system of the late 1970s and early 1980s microcomputing world. For retrocomputing enthusiasts, CP/M represents the moment when software compatibility, not just hardware, became the central value in the microcomputer marketplace.

The Intel 8080 was an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed and manufactured by Intel Corporation. It was the first CPU in the x80 series, and was released in April 1974. The 8080 had a clock speed of 2 MHz and was capable of addressing 64 KB of memory. It had a total of 45 instructions and 7 registers, including the Accumulator, the Flags register and the stack pointer.

One of the key features of the 8080 was its ability to directly execute instructions for input/output operations, allowing for more efficient communication with peripheral devices such as keyboard, display, and storage. This made the 8080 a popular choice for early personal computers like the Altair 8800, the IMSAI 8080 and the first IBM PC.

Additionally, the 8080's architecture was widely adopted in industrial control systems and arcade games. It was also used as the basis for other microprocessors such as the Zilog Z80 which was widely used in home computers of the 1980s.

The 8080 was succeeded by the 8085 microprocessor in 1976, which was similar to the 8080 but had an additional instruction set and an integrated clock generator. The 8080 and the 8085 together with their variants and clones played an important role in the development of the microcomputer industry and the personal computer revolution.