Hewlett-Packard Co today becomes the first of the majors to announce an 80486-based EISA bus machine in its Vectra personal computer line, pitching the machine at computer-aided design, multi-user business computing and server applications. The Hewlett-Packard Optimised Architecture in the case of the Vectra 486 PC means that the memory subsystem communicates with the CPU at processor speed – the 80486 is clocked at 25MHz – and comes with 2Mb standard, expandable to 64Mb on the system board, and 108Mb to 670Mb disk drives for a maximum of 1.3Gb, with 16mS access time and 2.5Mbytes-per-second transfer rate. Eight 32-bit EISA slots, which take existing AT boards, are available. In the UK, the machine with 1.2Mb 5.25 floppy is UKP10,000, in limited numbers this quarter, volume first quarter 1990 and the same configuration is also offered with a 152Mb, 330Mb or 670Mb disk.
