Missing computer company's

[hayden]

A lot of members were in IT so I thought this might interest some.

Major computer company's gone out of the computer business or bought out since I started maintaining computer equipment.

Unisys, Sperry Rand, Burroughs, Telex, RCA, NCR, CDC, DEC, Wang, Memorex, National Semiconductor,.....Who else?

Commodore, Altar, IMSA, SwTPC, Compaq, IBM (PCs), Radio Shack, Gateway. Probably lots more.

It may be easier to count the ones that are still around. Apple, HP, and IBM (non PCs) are probably the only originals.

 

[dstig1]

I guess we are not going to see any T&A, only T's and A's
Nice car collection.
FIL had a model T, scary taking turns, but it was a lot of fun to drive and weird with the shifting and pedal layout.

Perhaps I was a little too obscure in my pun, but ken got it....

 

[kenmbz]

I really need to get back to enjoying the cars… came close a few times finding the ideal property where they could be displayed.

2019 was the last time any were on the road…

Can I volunteer my place ?
Bit of a drive though.

 

[ultrarunner]

Can I volunteer my place ?
Bit of a drive though.

As a teenager I bought a 1968 stock 32,000 mile Z28 and drove it home with stops along the way from Air and Space to Yellowstone… looking back I regret not making more trips.

The attic at the hospital became a bone yard for computers and printers chronologically documenting the evolution of computing…

During the pandemic it all went to e waste…

I briefly thought about taking one of the Osborne 1s home.

 

[kenmbz]

Commodore, Altar, IMSA, SwTPC, Compaq, IBM (PCs), Radio Shack, Gateway. Probably lots more.

It may be easier to count the ones that are still around. Apple, HP, and IBM (non PCs) are probably the only originals.

I still have a SWTPC 6800 in my garage.

Altair, IMSA forgot about those, pretty big in their time.

for those interested, have talked to these people a few times, but never got time to visit.

Home

computerhistory.org

 

[WinterDeere]

I think I've mentioned him here before, but one of my primary undergraduate computer engineering professors was one of the engineers who designed and built ENIAC at U of Penn. The ENIAC was the world's first general purpose electronic computer, both Adam and Eve to every computer you've ever known.

He was old as dirt by the time I had him for my microprocessors, mini computers, and personal computers classes, which was pretty rare in itself, most computer engineering professors in the 1990's being very young guys. His perspective on everything he taught us was amazing, in that he knew the complete history and reasoning behind why each bit of hardware worked the way it did. Unfortunately, most of that was lost on a bunch of 20 year olds.

In any case, for those who've somehow never heard of ENIAC:

ENIAC | Penn Engineering

www.seas.upenn.edu

 

[kenmbz]

and UNIVAC , ah the good old days of running around changing out tubes at a prescribed time to stop the machine from crashing , luckily I never had to maintain one.

Also missing Cray and Next.

A local defense company had a Cray- my friend had access and we tried to run a chaos theory equation-but forgot the offset to stop it from divide by 0 or going infinite.
Cray crashed and a lot of people got very angry, he was no longer allowed access.

My cousin worked for Next for a few years.

 

[5030]

Unless it was named and I overlooked it, Kaypro, Non Linear Instruments no longer exists. My first 64 K machine was a Kaypro. Floppy discs and all.

 

[WinterDeere]

and UNIVAC , ah the good old days of running around changing out tubes at a prescribed time to stop the machine from crashing , luckily I never had to maintain one.

Also missing Cray and Next.

A local defense company had a Cray- my friend had access and we tried to run a chaos theory equation-but forgot the offset to stop it from divide by 0 or going infinite.
Cray crashed and a lot of people got very angry, he was no longer allowed access.

My cousin worked for Next for a few years.

I believe UNISYS came out of UNIVAC? I remember a lot of my parents friends, and a lot of my friends parents, working for UNISYS in the 1980's into 1990's.

I hadn't realized Cray was bought by HP in 2019, but I guess they still produce product out of the same group, now under the HPE name? They were the high water mark, at least in terms of my limited exposure to mainframe computers, in the early 1990's.

The 36-core Intel Xeon Dell PC sitting neatly on my desk next to me, and plugged into a regular wall circuit with no liquid cooling, is surely more powerful than any of those older liquid-cooled Crays, that filled multiple 19" floor-to-ceiling racks and required multiple dedicated 240VAC circuits for computer + cooling plant.

 

[garry1p]

In the AF when our computer system (Air Defense Command) went down we would get a call's from the HQ every 20 min wanting a progress update.
Even though we had a backup system we switched on line if we did not have the system up in 1 hour we would turn out all the lights and went cabinet to cabinet pulling dead vacuum tubes This would net us 8 to 10 dead tubes and the system would come up.
I wonder how many know the difference between a Pentode and a Triode vacume tube.

Burrough's charged the AF $28 for a Triode available at any TV shop for $6.