PC Open Architecture Developers' Group (OADG, Japanese: ) is a consortium of the major Japanese personal computer manufacturers. Sponsored by IBM during the 1990s, it successfully guided Japan's

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tech ...

manufacturing companies at that time into standardising to an

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a tea ...

-compatible and

open architecture Open architecture is a type of computer architecture or software architecture intended to make adding, upgrading, and swapping components with other computers easy. For example, the IBM PC, Amiga 500 and Apple IIe have an open architecture suppor ...

History

Before the advent of the

in 1981 in the United States, there were many different varieties and designs of personal computer. Examples from that era include the Tandy

RadioShack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...

and Commodore. These machines were each based upon a different computer architecture and the software programs that ran on them were compatible only with the machine they had been designed for. In Japan, except for the

MSX MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice-p ...

, this situation continued well into the early 1990s, because three of Japan's major electronics manufacturers (NEC, Sharp and Fujitsu) had also designed their own unique personal computers; although NEC with its

NEC 9801 The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or , is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000. The platform established NEC's dominance in the Japanese personal computer market, and, by 1999, more th ...

was at that time the most successful. The American computer manufacturer IBM had entered the Japanese market with its own IBM 5550 computer. Japanese-language-capable computers at the time, however, had special requirements in terms of processor capability and screen size, and IBM's JX project, emphasizing compatibility with the IBM PC, enjoyed limited success. The whole situation was felt by many to be hindering the healthy growth of the Japanese computer industry, particularly since domestic and overseas software vendors had to develop, test and support many different software programs to run on the many different kinds of personal computers sold in Japan. IBM developed the operating software

DOS/V DOS/V is a Japanese computing initiative starting in 1990 to allow DOS on IBM PC compatibles with VGA cards to handle double-byte (DBCS) Japanese text via software alone. It was initially developed from PC DOS by IBM for its PS/55 machines ...

in Japan, and licensed it to other Japanese PC manufacturers. To promote the IBM PC architecture on which DOS/V worked, IBM sponsored a consortium which was named the PC Open Architecture Developers' Group (OADG) in 1991 and made public its internal architecture and interfaces. At the height of this enterprise, the consortium included amongst its members the major Japanese PC manufactures, such as

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems ...

and

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

, and overseas manufacturers such as

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Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...

and

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

of the United States. Together, they not only strove to develop a unified architecture, but also produced a number of DOS/V-compatible application software programs and participated in the major computer shows. By the time

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

's computer operating system

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufactu ...

had arrived in 1995, the IBM PC architecture, using DOS/V, was already a predominant force in Japan.

Members

In 2003, membership included the following companies: *

Sharp Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products, headquartered in Sakai-ku, Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. Since 2016 it has been majority owned by the Taiwan-based Foxconn Group. Sharp employs more tha ...

Sony Corporation , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

Toshiba Corporation , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems ...

IBM Japan IBM has had business internationally since before the company had a name. Early leaders of the companies that would eventually become IBM (Mr Hollerith, Mr Flint, and Mr Watson) all were involved in doing international business. In those early day ...

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...

Panasonic Corporation formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

References

External links

PC Open Architecture Developers' Group
(former official web site)

OADG is a member of the Free Standards Group. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pc Open Architecture Developers' Group Personal computers IBM PC compatibles

History

Members

See also

References

External links