Spea Software AG was a German computer hardware and software company based in

Starnberg Starnberg is a Town#Germany, town in Bavaria, Germany, some southwest of Munich. It is at the north end of Lake Starnberg, in the heart of the "Five Lakes Country", and serves as capital of the Starnberg (district), district of Starnberg. Recor ...

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

. Founded in 1985, the company produced

graphics card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a displa ...

s for the

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on ...

and compatibles. In 1995, Spea Software was acquired by

Diamond Multimedia Diamond Multimedia is an American company that specializes in many forms of multimedia technology. They have produced graphics cards, motherboards, modems, sound cards and MP3 players; however, the company began with the production of the TrackS ...

History

Spea Software AG was founded in

, in 1985 by Ulrich Seng. The company's name is an acronym standing for ''Systeme für Professionelle Elektronik und Automation'' (Systems for Professional Electronics and Automation). The company chiefly produced

s for the

and compatibles, at first producing ISA cards before branching out to

VESA Local Bus The VESA Local Bus (usually abbreviated to VL-Bus or VLB) is a short-lived expansion bus introduced during the i486 generation of x86 IBM-compatible personal computers. Created by VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association), the VESA Local Bu ...

and

PCI PCI may refer to: Business and economics * Payment card industry, businesses associated with debit, credit, and other payment cards ** Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a set of security requirements for credit card processors * Prov ...

cards in the 1990s. In 1992, the company went public on the

Frankfurt Stock Exchange The Frankfurt Stock Exchange (, former German name: , ''FWB'') is the world's 3rd oldest and 12th largest stock exchange by market capitalization. It has operations from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm ( German time). Organisation Located in Frankfurt, ...

. Some time in the late 1980s or early 1990s, the company established an American subsidiary by the name of Computer Visualization Technologies, Inc. (CVTI), headquartered in

Fremont, California Fremont () is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, Fremont has a population of 230,504 as of 2020, making it the fourth List of cities and towns in the San F ...

. In May 1993, Spea through CVTI acquired

Video Seven Video Seven, Inc., also typeset as Video-7, later Headland Technology, Inc., was a public American computer hardware company independently active from 1984 to 1989. The company manufactured expansion cards for personal computers, mainly graphics ...

, a major American graphics cards manufacturer based in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

, from

LSI Logic LSI Logic Corporation was an American company founded in Santa Clara, California, was a pioneer in the ASIC and EDA industries. It evolved over time to design and sell semiconductors and software that accelerated storage and networking in data ...

. This gave rise to the product line Spea/V7. Simultaneously with the acquisition of Video Seven, Seng stepped down as chairman of Spea. After encountering difficulty marketing graphics cards under the Spea/V7 brand name, Spea had the Video Seven division shuttered in 1993. Spea themselves continued to sell multimedia peripherals such as

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...

and graphics cards with the Video Seven trademark into 1995. Sales at the company peaked at 174 million in 1994. In November 1995, Spea itself was acquired by

of the United States.

Products

Although the company is considered a German graphics card pioneer, the company did not develop graphics chips itself (like

Matrox Matrox Graphics, Inc. is a producer of graphics card, video card components and equipment for personal computers and workstations. Based in Dorval, Quebec, Canada, it was founded in 1976 by Lorne Trottier and Branko Matić. The name is derived ...

, for example). Instead, it used

chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components on one or more integrated circuits that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. The chipset is usually found on the motherboard of computers. Chips ...

s from various manufacturers (including S3,

Tseng Labs Tseng Laboratories, Inc. (also known as Tseng Labs or TLI) was a maker of graphics chips and controllers for IBM PC compatibles, based in Newtown, Pennsylvania, and founded by Jack Hsiao Nan Tseng. History 1983–1995 Founded in 1983, Tseng L ...

, and

Avance Logic Realtek Semiconductor Corp. () is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Realtek was founded in October 1987 and subsequently listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998. Realtek has manu ...

) for its graphics and multimedia cards. The drivers were developed by Spea itself.

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em Computer companies established in 1985 Computer companies disestablished in 1995 Defunct computer companies of Germany Defunct computer hardware companies German companies established in 1985 German companies disestablished in 1995 Graphics hardware companies Defunct software companies of Germany