The Hewlett-Packard Vectra
                               Mike Serraglio

    I   recently   had   the  opportunity  to  watch  a  demonstration  of
    Hewlett-Packard's answer to the IBM  PC/AT,  The  Vectra  PC.   Before
    relating  my  impressions  of the demonstration, a few facts about the
    Vectra.

    Vectra comes with the MS-DOS  3.1  operating  system,  making  it  IBM
    compatible.  Also included is HP's Personal Application Manager (PAM),
    a menu driven program allowing the user to start  a  program  using  a
    single  function  key.   The Vectra comes with a 80286 m icroprocessor
    and has an optional 80287 co-processor for greater speed of arithmetic
    computations.   It is an 8 MegaHertz machine as compared to the AT's 6
    MegaHertz.

    You can opt for 256k or 640k of memory initially, however, it  can  be
    expanded  to  3  megabytes.   The  Vectra  can accommodate up to three
    internal storage devices.  A 360k or 1.2 megabyte, 5 1/4 inch flexible
    disc and a 20M byte hard disc.  The company says a 4 0M byte hard disc
    will be available in 1986.

    The Vectra has seven slots for additional  boards.   Various  external
    devices  include  HP  disc  and  tape  drives,  monochrome  and  color
    monitors, ThinkJet and LaserJet Printers, and HP plotters.

    The demonstration was held at the Lexington Herald-Leader.   Our  main
    concern  was  whether  the Vectra would live up to its claims of great
    speed.  Not having access to an AT, we could only compare it to a  PC.
    We  tried  two  benchmarks.   The  first  was  a  COBOL co mpile using
    Ryan-Mcfarland Cobol.  A program that took 90 seconds  to  compile  in
    the PC, took only nine seconds in the Vectra.

    Our  second  test  involved  the recalculation of a Lotus spreadsheet.
    The recalculation took 32 seconds in the PC, but took only  8  seconds
    in  the Vectra.  We also tried several software packages to insure IBM
    compatibility.  These included Personal Editor II,  Picture  Graphics,
    Word Proof, Symphony, and others.  All passed.

    The  graphics  capability of the monitor, which is mounted on a swivel
    pad, appeared quite good, though we only looked at  it  briefly.   The
    keyboard  has  both  a numeric and cursor keypad, rather than a single
    pad with a numeric-lock key.  Satisfied with the sp eed of the Vectra,
    and  since our business operations are run on two HP mini-computers, a
    HP3000 Series 68 and a HP3000 Series III, we  opted  to  purchase  the
    Vectra.   After  arrival  and  installation  I  will  give  a complete
    hands-on review.