AST Research

AST Research, Inc., later doing business as AST Computer, was a personal computer manufacturer. It was founded in 1980 in Irvine, California by Albert Wong, Safi Qureshey, and Thomas Yuen, as an initialism of their first names. In the 1980s, AST designed add-on expansion cards, and evolved toward the 1990s into a major personal computer manufacturer. AST was acquired by Samsung Electronics in 1997 but was ''de facto'' closed in 1999 due to a series of losses.

Foundation (1979–1986)

AST Research was founded as AST Associates by Thomas C. K. Yuen, Albert C. Wong, and Safi U. Qureshey. All three were immigrants to the United States—Yuen and Wong from Hong Kong and Qureshey from Pakistan. Yuen had met Qureshey while working for Computer Automation Inc. in the 1970s, while Wong was a roommate of Yuen's while they both attended Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California. All had come to the United States to study engineering. Yuen was the principal founder of AST, proposing the creation of the company in 1979. Before breaking into the manufacture of hardware, Yuen envisioned the company as a computer consultancy firm for large businesses. The three incorporated AST Research with $2,000 of start-up capital in Irvine, California, in July 1980. The company name is an initialism for the three founders' first names. Selecting their initial job titles by drawing straws, Qureshey was named president, Yuen was named treasurer, and Wong was named secretary.

AST delivered its first products by the end of 1981. By then, the computer consultancy idea had been abandoned, the company was renamed to AST Research, and the trio were deep into researching and developing expansion cards for the original IBM Personal Computer, which had been released in August 1981. The founders deemed the initial models of the IBM PC to have been equipped with an inadequate amount of RAM and communications capability and so devised a range of expansion cards that provided these features. They are listed in the charter issue of '' PC Magazine'' as follows: a series of memory expansion cards, ranging from 64 KB to 256 KB of additional RAM (with parity); a modem card with a phone jack and an RS-232 serial port; two asynchronous serial communication cards, one with a single RS-232 port and the other dual ports; and an advanced serial communication card, featuring two independently programmable RS-232 ports that could be programmed to support asynchronous, bisynchronous, SDLC, and HDLC protocols.

Sales of this initial lineup of products doubled every month within the first year of availability. Needing to keep up with the increasing demand from the customer base, the company vied for venture capital but were turned down by multiple banks. Instead, the founders all took out second mortgages on their residences in 1982 and were able to pool an additional $50,000 to invest into the company. Fortunately for the founders, AST's sales reached $13 million in 1983. This sudden increase in sales finally attracted venture capitalists, who invested $2.4 million in the company. In 1984, the company filed its initial public offering, bearing two million shares to the public in June that year.

In late 1983, the company introduced the SixPakPlus, a popular multifunction expansion card for the IBM PC that led to another sharp increase in sales. Shortly afterwards AST signed an agreement offered by IBM, allowing the latter company to resell AST's expansion cards at its IBM Product Centers and other reseller channels. Spurred by these developments, in March 1985 AST's executives opened AST Far East, Ltd., in Hong Kong. This was its first international subsidiary, serving as a crucial additional production line for the manufacture of the company's increasingly diverse products. AST's lineup of products by this point counted graphics cards for multiple computing platforms, a hard disk drive unit for the original compact Macintoshes, and a local area network board for the IBM PC.

From 1984 to 1985, AST's income rose from $5.7 million to $19 million, and from 1985 to 1986, AST's revenues doubled, reaching $138.6 million, In March 1986, the company purchased the French computer wholesaler National System Company, in order to establish a second international subsidiary, AST France. Shortly after, AST company acquired Camintonn, a computer memory maker. By the end of 1986, AST had established overseas divisions in the Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The combined revenue from international subsidiaries contributed to one quarter of the company's revenue. With this success, AST reincorporated in Delaware to take advantage of its corporate laws.

PC compatibles (1986–1989)

By late 1986, AST's expansion card offerings were facing imminent obsolescence, as IBM by this point had offered higher-end upgraded models of the IBM PC, chiefly the PC XT and the PC/AT, that integrated most of the features of AST's PC expansion cards. To keep from posting losses, AST laid off seven percent of the company's 890 employees in July 1986; clandestinely, they also laid plans to introduce a line of PC-compatible computer systems. The AST Premium/286, a clone of the PC/AT featuring an identical Intel 80286 microprocessor, was introduced in October 1986. To make the computer more competitive among a crowded PC compatible market, AST offered the Premium/286 in an optional package that included a discounted laser printer and image scanner, advertised as an inexpensive desktop publishing workstation. AST released an upgraded version of the Premium/286 with the 32-bit Intel 80386

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