Hewlett-Packard Co accompanied announcement of its five new Vectra Personalikes (CI No 772) with news that it has been able to bring first del-iveries of its top-end HP3000 Model 950 RISC-based business computer forward to next week: the company had been targeting deliveries by the end of the year. The company is also reportedly working on an IBM Sys-tems Applications Architecture-compatible development environment for the HP3000s. The new micros, also announced in the UK, lead off with the 80386-based HP Vectra RS PCs, which are floor-standing systems. The 16MHz Vectra RS/16 PC includes 1Mb of main memory and comes standard with one 1.2Mb floppy and a 40Mb hard disk; it will be available in thefirst quarter of 1988 at $6,495; no UK price. The HP Vectra RS/20 PC comes in four basic models: the Model 40, $7,495, has 1Mb, 1.2Mb floppy drive, and 40Mb fixed disk; the others have 2Mb memory, with the 103Mb disk version at $8,995; 155Mb disk for $9,995; 310Mb disk at $11,995. A second Winchester can be added for a maximum internal 620Mb. The 103Mb, 155Mb, and 310Mb ESDI drives are all Hewlett’s own and have aver-age seek time of 17ms and use disk caching. Memory on the RS/16 and RS/20 goes to 16Mb of full 32-bit store, have eight slots and all run HP Vectra DOS 3.2 version of MS-DOS 3.2. They are designed for Microsoft’s OS/2, as are the new HP Vectra ES models. No mention yet of HP/UX on the 386 boxes. Two 80286-based versions of the HP Vectra ES systems, enhanced versions of the current HP Vectra PC, were launched: the HP Vectra ES runs at 8MHz, the ES/12 at 12MHz. Both offer 640Kb expandable to 8Mb using a board based on the Lotus/Intel/Microsoft 4.0 specifications. The ES with 1.2Mb floppy is $2,595, UKP2,050 here; with 20Mb hard disk, it is $2,795. Similarly configured ES/12s are $2,995, UKP2,300 here and $3,195 respectively; with 40Mb disk, the ES/12 is $4,195. All the80286 models arrive October 1. The entry-level Vectra CS PC has 640Kb and a 360Kb floppy for $1,195, UKP950 here; with 20Mb disk, it is $1,895. All new Vectras use surface-mount technology and VLSI to cut chip count.
