Favorite defunct computer company?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

Here's mine. (Carly Fiorina can go suck a cactus)

[dionysus]

1. Amiga

[Tunkamerica]

5. we had an amiga when i was a kid

it was pretty cool for its time. my friends were jealous.

[onehandle]

13. I still have my Amiga 1000. nt

[dionysus]

36. i've got an old 500 still

:)

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. I grew up with Ataris

[leeroysphitz]

3. Wang.

[ieoeja]

35. +1

[jmowreader]

57. You didn't actually LIKE the freakin' Wang VS, did you?

The Wang VS had to be the worst piece of crap in the computer room. IBM Series/1s were better. System/38s were better. Abacuses and pneumatic tubes were better.

[salin]

76. The wang was a pain... but buiilt my computer "inttuition"/"logic"

that has served me for years.

[salin]

78. An old Gateway - limps along - don't use it for much

but it hasn't died. Got it in the week of 9-11.

[Canuckistanian]

4. Timex-Sinclair

My first computer. Many happy memories (16k of RAM!)

[leeroysphitz]

9. Oh I had one when I was twelve. The 16k memory module would always find a way

to fall off of the back and crash the thing just as I was about to finish entering 5 or 6 hours of typing code.

I bought the game Frogger for it. It came on an audio cassette and it took around forty minutes to load every time I wanted to play it.

Good times.

[Canuckistanian]

17. Yeah, "save" was a long, involved process

Kids these days have it easy.

I used it for this neat aircraft simulation and Rubik's Cube.

But later on, I used it for business purposes (keeping track of customers when I was a photographer).

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. 16K? You were lucky! I had 1K!

Yes, we really did have the Sinclair ZX81 without the expansion memory. We upgraded to a BBC Model B, which had 32K, which was plenty (no, it really was - go and play Elite, or Acornsoft's Revs, to see what really skilled programmers can achieve with 32K RAM).

[Newest Reality]

6. Commodore Business Machines!

Commodore 64, (and Amiga) all the way!

[slackmaster]

26. I have a working VIC 20 sitting under my desk at this very moment

It hasn't been turned on in a while, and I have no software for it.

[MedicalAdmin]

95. Commodore 64 for me and my friends.

Vic 20 for the school I went to. The school purchased exactly 1 of these and to use it you had to be "trained" by the shop teachers, who, of course, couldn't even type, and observe "clean room" protocols to use it. Most of us just piled into my house or my friends Steves house and played with the commodores. Wrote my first program on it, a BS piece of RPG.

Good times.

[DBoon]

7. PR1ME

2nd choice - any other Pick-based system

[Xipe Totec]

8. Osborne

http://oldcomputers.net/osborne.html

[littlewolf]

10. C64 ... also had a C128 ....

[onehandle]

11. Apple. They were declared dead in 1986...

1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011...

Oh, how Michael Dell and John Dvorak hate them.

[Ezlivin]

32. Amen.

There were articles published all the time about Apple and why it was doomed.

Sadly, I can recall seeing Apple stock down to $14. Too bad I couldn't afford 1,000 shares back then!

[MedicalAdmin]

97. We are running a 10 year old desktop and an 8 year old laptop in our office.

Still runs like a clock and still works well with our intranet.

Apple, say what you will about them, are built to last (or at least that is my experience).

[dawg]

12. My favorite *defunct* computer company?

HP!

[Pancho Sanza]

14. Data General. (I know, not a personal computer but I used them a lot)

Mine had a whopping 16K of core and a 20 MB disk drive that was the size of a washing machine! Did you know computers were in the Bible?.........Eve had an Apple and Adam had a Wang.

groan......that's a really really oldy moldy one. heh

[Broderick]

94. LOL

I used to work on those things. Many moons ago.

[NYCGirl]

15. The Compaq "Portable" like yours was the first computer

I worked with. The thing weighed a TON! But I also got a Compaq desktop.

Now, I'm a Mac person all the way.

[slackmaster]

16. NeXT, because their machines looked so cool

[alfredo]

67. NeXtStep is the daddy of OSX

But my real love was AfterStep

[MineralMan]

18. Kaypro.

Actually I had that one after my first PC-clone, an Epson Equity II.



Here's the Epson Equity II:

[Bragi]

75. Fabulous

I dropped my KayPro 10 down the stairs of an aircraft ramp once and it just kept on ticking.

Came with a 10 meg internal hard disk.

No-one could imagine at the time ever needing that much storage.

- B

[Terry in Austin]

19. Compaq may be defunct, but my old luggable isn't

Exactly as pictured. Mine's in the attic, but it still boots up.

[The_Casual_Observer]

20. DEC - Digital Equipment Corp

They made a mysterious mainframe thing called a VAX that everyone used to talk about.

[DavidDvorkin]

25. Another vote for DEC

Although in my case, it was the DEC-20 that I worked on.

[bemildred]

34. DEC with a best runner up for SMCC.

Solaris is a great operating system.

[DavidDvorkin]

49. Agree with both statements.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

28. I used to warm my office with a microVAX . The later VAXstations were never quite the same

[northernlights]

50. DEC

made my career there for nearly 20 years.

I remember my firt online Christmas Card. Christmas scene with falling snow that beeped Jingle Bells. You could here it everywhere, for years...VAX/vtx

[TrogL]

51. I had to deal with one

I was really impressed with the Alpha chip. Pity it never lasted.

[jmowreader]

58. The MicroVAX was even more fun

I had a Compact MicroVAX. It was the size of a 2-drawer filing cabinet, so it was only really "compact" compared to a 4361, but it was super useful.

I liked best that it had a Unisys AN/UYK-43 emulator on it, so we could write programs for our -43 without needing a second one.

(This is a UYK-43:


)

[MurrayDelph]

63. I miss my VMS

I not only talked ABOUT VAX, I worked for DEC for 16 years, TEACHING it.

I wish there was still a demand for them, they were great.

I also wish I still had the Christmas ornament I bought in the company store at the Landover (MD) training center. I gave it away as I never had Christmas trees (something about being brought up Jewish). On one side it had the "digital" logo; on the other it had the greeting "DEC the halls."

[ramapo]

87. DEC - Still missing it after all these years

I worked on RSX and VMS. Spent six plus years at DEC. Was there at the height of the glory years but things went downhill rather quickly. The company changed my life and there was no place that I was prouder to work.

VMS is a great O/S. Microsoft then basically stole it for NT and did a crappy job. Alpha was fantastic technology. DECnet too, for its time. RdB was another fine product.

Thank DEC for evolving ethernet and the internet. Altavista was a technology leader. Modular storage...DEC had it first. And on and on the list could go. I still enjoy looking through the old Systems and Options catalogs.

Only problem was the company could not market to save its soul and the inner wars were something to behold.

[MannyGoldstein]

21. MOS Technology

Kim-1. Great stuff. Cheap and simple.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

27. One of the best teaching tools out there

when mounted on a breadboard.

[MannyGoldstein]

41. Almost too easy these days

Kids start out with computers of astonishing power and are very abstracted from the hardware. My son's 11, I hope to get him started on an AVR or PIC or similar one of these days.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

48. Many of my students have no concept of assembly or programing on the metal

Some never get it and become IT majors instead

[MannyGoldstein]

71. What do you teach?

I think that TI gives away MSP430 dev kits to students and teachers for the asking. They're very fun little 16-bit MCUs, you probably already know all about 'em.

You'd like the software engineers where I work - almost all of them have EE degrees. But we do medical devices, lots of serious down 'n dirty stuff :headbang:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

88. Comp Sci/Engr mostly. I prefer the 200 level classes with some specialty stuff thrown in

Its the most exciting place to teach...young people are just figuring out if that is what they want to do. Not as intellectual as 400 series or grad stuff, but much more rewarding.

[somone]

22. Those things were made like a brick

with a weight to match

[marmar]

23. This classic....my first computer:

Although Atari is still a software company, they don't make these anymore.

[LTR]

89. Oh, I remember that one!!!

Star Raiders kicked ass! Also had some bootleg versions of Frogger, Centipede and Pac-Man for it. Ah, the innocent age!

[Ohio Joe]

24. S2I/SSI

I worked hard to build them... and it worked... until the owner killed the company. Douchebag.

[nc4bo]

29. My pop had one of those Radio Shack jobs - no idea what make/model it was

I do know it was expensive! I bought my first pc in 2000. It was a Compaq Presario WV####. It was so cool at first and I was so happy and then the honeymoon was over.

I have it to thank for giving me the courage to build my own with parts I wanted. Also learned that factory installed OS's are annoying and aren't much fun when you want to upgrade/change/avoid stuff.

I also suffered a multitude of finger cuts from the sheet metal in that tight arse case so I also have it to thank for my huge case fetish.

[Rex]

30. Radio Shacks TANDY systems!

TRS-80 was my favorite along with the COMMODORE 128.

[Blue_Tires]

44. YES

my friend had that and my computer lab in elementary school had them...

[delightfulstar]

47. Another vote for Tandy...

And an honorable mention for Commodore.

[TransitJohn]

31. Edit: Tandy/RadioShack TRS-80s.

My freshman year of high school in '86, when we were in Computer Science, that's what we had. The first day of class, the teacher, Mr. Lynn, said we couldn't use the one up front. We asked why. He said, "Because it's special." We asked why it was special. He let a pregnant pause, then intoned reverentially, "It has a hard drive!"

:rofl:

Edited to add the name of the manufacturing company. Doh!

[Pancho Sanza]

59. Someone wrote the DOS for the Tandy machines, called TRSDOS and it was way better than MSDOS

in my opinion...I got to know it fairly well but I mostly used XDOS which was Xebec's version. They all do the same thing but some are easier and more intuitive.

[MilesColtrane]

33. Apple

One day Apple was a major technology company with assets to make any self-respecting techno-conglomerate salivate. The next day Apple was a chaotic mess without a strategic vision and certainly no future. - Stewart Alsop, Time Magazine February, 6 1996

[Xenotime]

79. No!!

[RamboLiberal]

37. Qantel Business Computers

As a programmer got me off the IBM System 32's with 96 column card decks and RPGII language. My first introduction to a small business system with green screen terminals. Had a fairly decent compiled version of Basic called QicBasic.

Ran across an ad for Qantel's on YouTube.

The company is still around with software. I think because they had a manufacturing package named QMRP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2UIp7FVcs4

[backscatter712]

39. Atari!

I still have my 8-bit Atari 800XL around somewhere.

[csziggy]

40. Micron, when they made computers and not just memory

My first Windows computer was from Micron, built in Idaho. Great service, nice response time, decent prices. I was disappointed when I was ready to replace it that Micron no longer built computers, just sold memory. So I built my own - I did put Micron memory in it!

[IDemo]

62. My first - a Micron 486 DX4-100

With a whopping 40MB hard drive and Windows 3.11.

Micron is now making SSD's (flash-based hard drives) and are developing solar cells and LED's.

[csziggy]

64. My Micron was a little older than that - just plain 486

And I think a 20 MB hard drive. I later added a 1.6 GB hard drive, but we had to use drive a overlay program so the motherboard could see it since it was over the limit of what that mobo was designed for.

I'm glad to hear they are into newer technology. I have gotten out of building my own computers so I have not kept up with the companies in the business. Maybe when I am ready for solar power for my house I can buy Micron!

[PCIntern]

42. I still have a working ADAM computer...

with all the books and cassettes to play the game (note singular) and a cassette for the word-processor!!!

Paid a guy 300 bucks for it USED after he used it for a week and thought all this computer stuff was all 'BS'.

[The_Casual_Observer]

55. I recall something called an "Adam the younger"

I think it had something to do with the Adam.

[EstimatedProphet]

43. It's back in the USSR

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

45. Well, it may not be able to run Vista or 7, but it runs XP.

[Atman]

46. Kaypro

Solid as a rock...we used to use them on the beach to tabulate scoring in surf contests. They looked similar to that Compaq, expect made out of plain metal, looked like something military. Awesome.

[catabryna]

52. Burroughs/Unisys...

ala 1987... welcome to antiquated word processor power at its best with green screen monitor and all! Gawd, that was a long time ago. :eyes:

[hunter]

98. I worked for Burroughs when they were still repairing 10 meg hard drives...

... the size of washing machines.

[Enrique]

53. Commodore

[Shandris]

54. My first computer was a Texas Instruments.

The TI 99/4A, to be specific. My grandfather got it at an unreal price -- it was on sale for 75 dollars at Sears with an 80 dollar mail-in rebate. They paid me to take it! :)

I also loved the Trash80's, Tandy CoCo's, and the OHMYGODIHAVETOHAVETHIS Commodore Amiga.

Them was the days!

[Paulie]

68. Still have mine, with PE box.

And 480k Corcom ram disk. I still love tunnels of doom. :)

[Capitalocracy]

56. As a typist, I must say

that keyboard is unacceptable.

[lpbk2713]

60. My first real home PC was a Wang 386.

It was alright for a couple of years. Before that I had a TI-99/4A. This was in the early 80's.

[walldude]

61. Cray.

Hey I like em' big. Not just a computer.. a SUPERCOMPUTER!

[DainBramaged]

65. They remain in business......

http://www.cray.com/Products/CX/Systems.aspx

[Tunkamerica]

66. 50000 bucks for a supercomputer

[walldude]

86. Wow thanks.. thought they died out when Sun stopped

building supers...

[Paulie]

69. AT&T, not the 6300, but the 7300/3b1 and 3b2

The latter ran a western electric CPU, and to change the boot bios, you went into the MCP. Plus, ran SysVr3.

[Stevenmarc]

70. Altair

[MannyGoldstein]

73. Wow! I never used one!

Just a touch before my time. But I read about it in Popular Electronics.

Were they fun, tedious, thrilling, or ...?

[Stevenmarc]

77. They were a bit

of a wild ride, a pain in the ass but at the end of the day you knew you were a bit of a pioneer.

[MannyGoldstein]

84. I did machine language in hex

And that was painful (and felt pioneering, yes!)

But the Altair was binary via switches IIRC. Wow. That must have taken some serious concentration!

[MisterP]

72. Macintosh

[MannyGoldstein]

74. Why in God's name was this thread unrec-ed

Perfectly enjoyable thread.

[Xenotime]

81. +1

[jayfish]

80. Zeos and Midwest Micro

I used to drool all over their Computer Shopper ads.The Golden Era of white box PC's...

[unkachuck]

82. Comodore....

....Vic20....I still have it and a 300 baud modem....as a matter of fact, I'm using it right now....

[Xenotime]

83. Microsoft

[madamesilverspurs]

85. HAL

What are you doing, Dave?
.

.

.

Please don't, Dave.

.

.

.

Daisy, Daaaiissisyyy

-

[slampoet]

90. What no love for ADAM computers?

[amb123]

91. Amstrad PC1512

British IBM PC XT Clone.

20MB Hard Drive, Intel 8086 12MHz, CGA Screen, 512 K Memory, MS DOS 3.2, GEM 2.0 Desktop GUI.

[vanamonde]

92. E.S.R. Inc

Digi-comp I
http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/digicomp_1.html

Or better yet, a toy I had in 1961, the Think-a-Tron
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXwUiogMd_4

[HopeHoops]

93. Commodore.

[Recursion]

96. DEC

I miss my old Alphas.