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Ridge Computers
Ridge Computers, Inc., was an American computer manufacturer active from 1980 to 1990. The company began as a builder of deskside workstations and workgroup servers and progressed to superminicomputers. They claimed to have produced the first commercially available Reduced instruction set computer (RISC) systems. Company history Ridge Computers was established in May 1980 in Santa Clara, California by six original founders, five of whom had come from Hewlett-Packard (HP), and one from Zilog. The company was named for the Montebello Ridge, where two of the founders used to go cycling. Ridge's first prototype was running by autumn 1981, and entered beta testing one and a half years later in early 1983. The system was presented at the Comdex show in autumn 1983. The earliest CPUs were bit slice processors built from "Fast" ("F" infix) type 7400-series integrated circuits and Programmable Array Logic (PAL) devices. The Ridge CPU's qualification as a RISC design has been challe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Computer Hardware
Computer hardware includes the physical parts of a computer, such as the central processing unit (CPU), random-access memory (RAM), motherboard, computer data storage, graphics card, sound card, and computer case. It includes external devices such as a Computer monitor, monitor, Computer mouse, mouse, Computer keyboard, keyboard, and Computer speakers, speakers. By contrast, software is a set of written instructions that can be stored and run by hardware. Hardware derived its name from the fact it is ''Hardness, hard'' or rigid with respect to changes, whereas software is ''soft'' because it is easy to change. Hardware is typically directed by the software to execute any command or Instruction (computing), instruction. A combination of hardware and software forms a usable computing system, although Digital electronics, other systems exist with only hardware. History Early computing devices were more complicated than the ancient abacus date to the seventeenth century. French ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Pyramid Technology
Pyramid Technology Corporation was a computer company that produced a number of RISC-based minicomputers at the upper end of the performance range. It was based in the San Francisco Bay Area of California They also became the second company to ship a multiprocessor UNIX system (branded DC/OSx), in 1985, which formed the basis of their product line into the early 1990s. Pyramid's OSx was a dual-universe UNIX which supported programs and system calls from both 4.xBSD and AT&T's UNIX System V. History Pyramid Technology was formed in 1981 by a number of ex-Hewlett-Packard employees, who were interested in building first-rate minicomputers based on RISC designs. Pyramid licensed its multiprocessor bus technology to Fujitsu/ ICL in 1993, also entering into a marketing partnership in certain markets that would see ICL sell Pyramid server products and offer integration services with ICL's existing mainframe products. Such sales arrangements were to continue into 1994, by which time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth List of governors of California, governor of and then-incumbent List of United States senators from California, United States senator representing California) and his wife, Jane Stanford, Jane, in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr., Leland Jr. The university admitted its first students in 1891, opening as a Mixed-sex education, coeducational and non-denominational institution. It struggled financially after Leland died in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, university Provost (education), provost Frederick Terman inspired an entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial culture to build a self-sufficient local industry (later Silicon Valley). In 1951, Stanfor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Microkernel
In computer science, a microkernel (often abbreviated as μ-kernel) is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system (OS). These mechanisms include low-level address space management, thread (computing), thread management, and inter-process communication (IPC). If the hardware provides multiple Protection ring, rings or CPU modes, the microkernel may be the only software executing at the most privileged level, which is generally referred to as kernel mode, supervisor or kernel mode. Traditional operating system functions, such as device drivers, protocol stacks and file systems, are typically removed from the microkernel itself and are instead run in user space. In terms of the source code size, microkernels are often smaller than monolithic kernels. The MINIX 3 microkernel, for example, has only approximately 12,000 lines of code. History Microkernels trace their roots back to Danish computer pioneer Per Brinch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
3Com
3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe explained the name 3Com was a contraction of "Computer Communication Compatibility", with its focus on Ethernet technology that he had co-invented, which enabled the networking of computers. 3Com provided network interface controller and switches, routers, wireless access points and controllers, IP voice systems, and intrusion prevention systems. The company was based in Santa Clara, California. From its 2007 acquisition of 100 percent ownership of H3C Technologies Co., Limited (H3C) —initially a joint venture with China-based Huawei Technologies—3Com achieved a market presence in China, and a significant networking market share in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. 3Com products were sold under the brands 3Com, H3C, and TippingPoi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed significantly to the evolution of several key computing technologies, among them Unix, Reduced instruction set computer, RISC processors, thin client computing, and virtualization, virtualized computing. At its height, the Sun headquarters were in Santa Clara, California (part of Silicon Valley), on the former west campus of the Agnews Developmental Center. Sun products included computer servers and workstations built on its own Reduced instruction set computer, RISC-based SPARC processor architecture, as well as on x86-based AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processors. Sun also developed its own computer storage, storage systems and a suite of software products, including the Unix-based SunOS and later Solaris operating system, Solaris operating s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Arthur Rock
Arthur Rock (born August 19, 1926) is an American businessman and investor. Based in Silicon Valley, California, he was an early investor in major firms including Intel, Apple Inc., Apple, Scientific Data Systems and Teledyne Technologies, Teledyne. Early life Rock was born and raised in Rochester, New York, in a Jewish family.Harvard Business School: "ARTHUR ROCK" retrieved October 8, 2015 He was an only child and his father owned a small candy store where Rock worked in his youth. He joined the U.S. Army during World War II but the war ended before he was deployed. He then went to college on the G.I. Bill. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in business administration from Syracuse University in 1948 and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1951. < ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Company by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, the company was incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer, Inc. the following year. It was renamed Apple Inc. in 2007 as the company had expanded its focus from computers to consumer electronics. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue, with billion in the 2024 fiscal year. The company was founded to produce and market Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. Its second computer, the Apple II, became a best seller as one of the first mass-produced microcomputers. Apple introduced the Lisa in 1983 and the Macintosh in 1984, as some of the first computers to use a graphical user interface and a mouse. By 1985, internal company problems led to Jobs leaving to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Network Computing Devices
Network Computing Devices (NCD) was a company founded in 1987 to produce a new class of products now known as a thin client. It was founded in Mountain View, CA, and when it closed it was headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon. The corporate founders were Mike Harrigan, Doug Klein, Dave Cornelius, Ed Basart, Martin Eberhard, and Kevin Martin. At that time these devices were known as network terminals or X Terminals. Judith Estrin and William Carrico joined the company about 6 months after its founding as its new CEO and executive vice president, and led the company through its IPO in 1992. The products were some of the earliest examples of a thin client and providing remote access to data in something other than ASCII as was common with traditional terminals of the time. The X Protocol provided a way to show high-resolution images of data and graphics over a network connection. NCD supported a range of network protocols including TCP/IP, Token Ring, DECnet and others. NCD also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
HP 3000
The HP 3000 series is a family of 16-bit computing, 16-bit and 32-bit computing, 32-bit minicomputers from Hewlett-Packard. It was designed to be the first minicomputer with full support for time-sharing in the hardware and the operating system, features that had mostly been limited to mainframes, or retrofitted to existing systems like Digital Equipment Corporation, Digital's PDP-11, on which Unix was implemented. First introduced in 1972, the last models reached end-of-life in 2010, making it among the longest-lived machines of its generation. The original HP 3000 hardware was withdrawn from the market in 1973 to address performance problems and OS stability. After reintroduction in 1974, it went on to become a reliable and powerful business system, one that regularly won HP business from companies that had been using IBM's mainframes. Hewlett-Packard's initial naming referred to the computer as the System/3000, and then called it the HP 3000. The HP 3000 originally used a 16-b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Apollo Computer
Apollo Computer Inc. was an American technology corporation headquartered and founded in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1980 by William Poduska (a founder of Prime Computer) and others. Apollo Computer developed and produced Apollo/Domain workstations in the 1980s. Along with Symbolics and Sun Microsystems, Apollo was one of the first vendors of graphical workstations. Like other computer companies at the time, Apollo produced much of its own hardware and software. Apollo was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 1989 for US$476 million (equivalent to $ million in ), and gradually closed down over the period of 1990–1997. The brand (as "HP Apollo") was resurrected in 2014 as part of HP's high-performance computing portfolio. History Apollo was started in 1980, two years before rival Sun Microsystems. In addition to Poduska, the founders included Dave Nelson (engineering), Mike Greata (engineering), Charlie Spector (COO), Bob Antonuccio (manufacturing), Gerry St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Hambrecht & Quist
Hambrecht & Quist (H&Q) was an investment bank based in San Francisco, California noted for its focus on the technology and Internet sectors. H&Q was founded by Bill Hambrecht and George Quist in California, in 1968. H&Q was an early player in the technology sector, underwriting initial public offerings (IPOs) for Apple Computer, Genentech, and Adobe Systems in the 1980s. In the 1990s, H&Q also backed the IPOs of Netscape, MP3.com, and Amazon.com. Competition in the investment banking industry in the late 1990s limited H&Q's ability to grow as an independent firm, and in 1999, Hambrecht & Quist was acquired for $1.35 billion by Chase Manhattan Bank. H&Q was originally to be renamed "Chase Securities West" but ultimately was renamed "Chase H&Q" after marketing research revealed the H&Q brand name was still valuable. This unit eventually lost the H&Q name and became part of JPMorgan Chase. The H&Q name lives on in the closed-end healthcare funds managed by Hambrecht & Quist Cap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
