Supra Corporation was best known as a manufacturer of modems for personal computers, but also produced a range of hardware for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

and

Atari ST Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available i ...

, including

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices, best known for its use with storage devices such as hard disk drives. SCSI was introduced ...

controllers, memory boards, and processor accelerators. They were purchased by Diamond Multimedia in 1995.

Early history

The company was founded by John Wiley and Alan Ackerman as Microbits Peripheral Products (MPP), a provider of interface products for

Atari 8-bit computers The Atari 8-bit computers, formally launched as the Atari Home Computer System, are a series of home computers introduced by Atari, Inc., in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The architecture is designed around the 8-bit MOS Technology 650 ...

. The two of them were friends in high school when they developed various computer hardware for the school computers, and were best known for a 300 baud modem and a printer interface. The company was successful for some time, but a number of factors led to its bankruptcy around 1986, and its reformation as Supra, initially selling

s for the

. Originally from

Albany, Oregon Albany ( ) is the county seat of Linn County, Oregon, and is the 11th most populous city in the state. Albany is located in the Willamette Valley at the confluence of the Calapooia River and the Willamette River in both Linn and Benton count ...

, they later moved to

Vancouver, Washington Vancouver ( ) is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington, located in Clark County, Washington, Clark County. Founded in 1825 and incorporated in 1857, Vancouver had a population of 190, ...

SupraFAXModem 14400

In 1991 the company arranged a deal with

Rockwell International Rockwell International was a major American manufacturing conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It was involved in aircraft, the space industry, defense and commercial electronics, components in the automotive industry, printing presses, avioni ...

to use their new V.32bis 14,400 bit/s modem chips with an exclusivity arrangement. Their SupraFAXModem 14400 was sold at prices points about half that of the slower 9600 V.32 models of the same era, and its introduction led to a rapid downward spiral in modem pricing.

Notable Dates

*1986 - Supra introduces a 10 MB hard drive for the Atari ST. *1987 - Supra introduces the Supra Modem 2400 at $179. *1991 - Supra introduces the SupraFAXModem 14400 at $399 and the SupraFAXModem V.32 at $299. *1994 - Supra purchases PSI Integration *1994 - Supra ships First 28.8 Modem *1994 - Supra ships First Voice Modem *1995 - Supra purchased by Diamond Multimedia *1999 -

S3 Graphics S3 Graphics, Ltd. was an American computer graphics company. The company sold the S3 Trio, Trio, S3 ViRGE, ViRGE, S3 Savage, Savage, and S3 Chrome, Chrome series of graphics processors. Struggling against competition from 3dfx Interactive, ATI T ...

purchases Diamond Multimedia

Products

*Supra Modems *Supra Voice Modems

Software

*FAXCilitate *Supra VoiceMail

References

{{Reflist

External links

List of Supra products for the Amiga
Defunct computer hardware companies Companies based in Albany, Oregon Defunct computer companies of the United States