The Vector

Thousand Oaks, 1977.

Lore Harp held the soldering iron steady, hovering above the Vector board. She watched the thin line of solder settle cleanly around the pin of the IC socket.

She worked fast enough to avoid wicking, but not too fast so that the joint wouldn’t turn brittle.

The gold S-100 contacts along the edge of the board had already been masked off carefully with strips of crepe tape. One careless splash of solder near the bus fingers and the entire board became unreliable. Worse, intermittently unreliable. Those failures consumed days.

She shifted the board slightly beneath the lamp and inspected the socket again.

No overflow inside the contact.

Good.

The cheaper sockets showed a strong habit of pulling molten solder upward through the pin channels whenever the iron stayed on too long. One second too slow and the chip would no longer seat properly afterward.

Bob still insisted these were acceptable for smaller production runs. Lore disagreed quietly and ordered precision sockets whenever cash flow allowed it.

The smell of hot flux drifted upward in thin waves. Clipped resistor wires that carefully were bent into narrow U-shaped jumpers lay next to the board.

Lore rested the iron briefly in its stand and touched the grounded metal frame beside the table before reaching for one of the PROMs waiting in its foam strip. The 1702 chips were not only expensive, but also temperamental little things. A static discharge — invisible to the eye — could destroy fifty dollars in less than a second.

The faint smell of alcohol from the earlier cleaning batch still hung in the air. An old toothbrush sat beside the lamp. It was stained amber from flux that had carefully been scrubbed off previous assemblies.

Invoices, parts catalogs and shipping slips scattered almost the entire remaining space on the table. Two completed Vector 1 computers waited at the wall for pickup the next morning, their blue-grey casings reflecting softly beneath the bright, merciless light.

Carol’s revised manuals sat stacked beside them in clean white binders.

Even the packaging looked expensive now.

That part mattered.

The telephone rang.

Lore removed the masking tape from the S-100 contacts carefully before setting the board aside at last. Only then did she reach for the receiver.

“Vector Graphic.”

A man answered immediately.

“Yes, hello. I was hoping to speak with someone in sales.”

Lore shifted the receiver slightly against her ear.

“One moment please.”

She lowered the handset into her lap briefly, exhaled once, then picked it back up with a warmer, brisker voice.

“Sales department, how can I help you?”

The transition was smooth by now, practised.

Lore Harp was President and Chief Executive Officer of Vector Graphic. On the phone, she was often several other people first.

The caller didn't hesitate.

“Ah, yes. We’re looking at the Vector 1 systems for office use and had a few questions.”

“Of course.”

She automatically reached for her pencil.

Behind her, the soldering iron cooled beside the half-finished memory board while the customer explained in excruciating detail that they were evaluating several manufacturers for internal accounting work.

“We’re primarily concerned about reliability,” he said. “Most of the machines we’ve evaluated still feel very experimental.”

“That’s exactly why we moved toward fully assembled systems,” Lore replied smoothly.

Not entirely true. Fully assembled systems simply sold better to businesses, which was a far more useful market than hobbyists assembling computers in garages on weekends.

The answer worked every single time, however.

The man relaxed almost immediately.

“I have a question regarding technical support. Please transfer me,” he asked.

Lore adjusted again slightly in her chair.

“Technical department.”

This voice sat lower. More clipped. Funny what small adjustments accomplished. Pace, tone and confidence did most of the work. Most callers only needed enough variation to imagine offices existing somewhere beyond the room. She listened to the voice at the end of the line.

“All Vector 1 systems are tested before shipment,” she confirmed, then added the final temptation for any customer: “If something fails, we replace it.”

“Excellent.”

He sounded relieved now.

Lore noted figures automatically in the margin of an old invoice while he spoke.

Five systems initially, possible expansion later.

Additional memory boards before year’s end.

The numbers arranged themselves in her head before the conversation had even finished.

By the time she placed the receiver back down, the next production run had effectively paid for itself.

Not comfortably, but sufficiently.

The back door opened.

Carol Ely — her co-founder, neighbor and friend — stepped inside carrying sandwiches and another stack of manuals fresh from the printer. She glanced once toward Lore, then toward the telephone.

“Order?”

“Five systems.”

Carol gave a short approving nod and set the manuals beside the typewriter. Before sitting down, she flipped automatically through the top binder, circled an error on the contents page with a pencil and then finally reached for her sandwich.

“That’s becoming a habit,” she said.

Lore lit a cigarette.

“People are getting tired of building computers themselves.”

“God forbid accountants learn soldering.”

Lore smiled faintly and exhaled a puff of smoke.

“Accountants prefer warranties.”

Across the room, boards waited beside stacks of shipping forms and foam packaging cut earlier that afternoon. The telephone sat silent again, heavy and black against the table.

Carol unwrapped her sandwich.

“Technical department sounded convincing.”

“I think purchasing liked technical department best.”

“Mm. Purchasing trusts departments.”

Lore leaned back slightly in her chair, absentmindedly running her finger over the phone.

People expected sales departments, support departments, accounting departments. So Vector Graphic had acquired them gradually, one voice at a time. The ease of callers buying the different personas had been a surprise.

The performance became easier with practice. Slightly brighter for sales, more formal for accounting, lower and calmer for technical support. Once callers pictured structure, the conversations changed almost automatically.

Carol reached for another manual.

“We should probably invent shipping soon.”

Lore exhaled smoke toward the ceiling.

“Shipping sounds expensive.”

Carol huffed a quiet laugh through her nose.

Outside, a car passed slowly through the neighborhood. The headlights drifted briefly across the workshop wall before disappearing again.

Lore looked toward the finished Vector 1s waiting near the door for pickup the next morning.

Pride flickered at the sight of the rounded edges and color-matched components. Every machine came with a printed manual that specified more than just technical details.

The computers already looked more successful than the old bathroom they had been built in.

Lore didn't allow herself pride yet. She felt encouraged by it, she told herself.

They’d come far since that cocktail party 18 months back. It felt like a lifetime ago already. A smile tugged at her mouth, remembering the times of overheated living rooms and men talking endlessly about hardware.