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Which defunct/disappeared computer manufacturer would you bring back?

Wow, fail, I didn't mention this in my earlier post.

If I could bring back any defunct manufacturer, it would have to be Burroughs. I've never seen one of there systems in person, though.

My mom grew up in a small, rural town: Dumas, Arkansas. She saw an early Burroughs system there owned by a relative for his business ("The first computer in Southeast Arkansas!")

I was out there recently, and it was said to still exist, but I couldn't track it down.
 
Why not educate people about your favorite company in the Wiki? Who knows, maybe someone will be inspired...
 
Well for BeOS fans you should keep an eye on Haiku (BeOS compatible attempt to maintain OS).. Haiku is to BeOS as Ecomstation/ECS is to OS/2.
 
Hazeltine
Data General
System Industries
The CDC Pegasus microcomputer system (never left R&D), CDC Plato, and CDC in general :)
Diablo Systems
Micropolis
 
Hmm Aureal or 3DFX. To be honest any computer company you bring back now would be just x86 clones with a slightly different case. I chose Aureal (sound) and 3DFX (video) because there is still a ton of things you could do in those areas and both companies were ahead of their times.
 
DOS lives on!! said:
I'd really want to bring back Packard Bell in the days that they still put this logo:
PackardBell602earlyfinished.jpg
on their computers.
Click to expand...

That logo is too early. PB used a much more modern logo on its computers. For example, the first minicomputer:

pb250-2t.jpg


(Just don't hit it too hard or you'll drop bits on the floor... :) )
 
Doug G said:
Hazeltine
Data General
System Industries
The CDC Pegasus microcomputer system (never left R&D), CDC Plato, and CDC in general :)
Diablo Systems
Micropolis
Click to expand...

Doug, did Hazeltine ever offer a computer? I'm only familiar with their terminals (and of course, the TV equipment).
Micropolis had only one system that I'm aware of and it served mostly to demonstrate their floppy drives. Do you know of any others?
 
hm, I am more of a hardware fanatic then a computers person in this department but here is mine small list.

Tulip Computer. (no longer makes computers AFAIK, owns a part of the Amiga brand after Gateway went south IIRC)
Commodore.
Gateway

I suppose i got them
 
Chuck(G) said:
Doug, did Hazeltine ever offer a computer? I'm only familiar with their terminals (and of course, the TV equipment).
Micropolis had only one system that I'm aware of and it served mostly to demonstrate their floppy drives. Do you know of any others?
Click to expand...
My bad, I was thinking of old-time computer companies in the generic, as in companies that made stuff to attach to computers as well as computers themselves.

If Hazeltine ever made a computer I don't know, although they did sell a cassette tape peripheral that connected to their terminals and there were rudimentary commands to control the tape you entered via the keyboard.

I never knew Micropolis made any complete computers, I just miss their disk drives.

Also Diablo, I only knew of Diablo and System Industries through disk subsystems on PDP-8 and DG Nova computers.
 
Doug G said:
If Hazeltine ever made a computer I don't know, although they did sell a cassette tape peripheral that connected to their terminals and there were rudimentary commands to control the tape you entered via the keyboard.
Click to expand...

One time I asked "what system did these disks come from?" of a customer. He insisted that he had a Hazeltine 1400 system... :)


I never knew Micropolis made any complete computers, I just miss their disk drives.
Click to expand...

Just one that I know of--just for their 100 tpi 5¼" floppies. I think I've only seen one for real. But then, that sort of thing wasn't unusual. GI had their GIMINI for the CP1600; National Semi had their Starplex systems, etc.

Also Diablo, I only knew of Diablo and System Industries through disk subsystems on PDP-8 and DG Nova computers.
Click to expand...

I knew George Constock (one of Diablo's founders). Diablo did indeed have computer systems, for example the Diablo 3000, but I think most people knew them for the daisywheel printers.
 
1.) Digital, I wish they would have been around longer, we might have Alpha machines today (still searching for one...but they shipping would be insane anyways).
2.) Compaq as their own company. I love my old Compaq 486, and it's the only system I own manufactured in the US, everything else is Asia somewhere with the exception of the PC-6300s which are from Italy.
3.) AST, they were a pretty cool company from what I know, with their RAM upgrade cards, some computers, etc.
4.) Daystar Digital. This is going off if Apple would have continued licensing to Mac Clones, but they were Dual and Quad processor Mac Clones before Apple even released anything. I'm sure that Quad 150 MHz 604s were pretty badass in 1996 while everyone else was using their 603e\single 604 macs. I wonder how well BeOS ran on these...
5.) IBM in the PC business. I know that IBM still does stuff with the Power processors and such, but the IBM Thinkcenters, Thinkpads, etc all seem better to me when they were made by IBM rather than Lenovo.
 
Right up until ATI, Nvidia and 3DFX began chewing at the bottom line, Silicon Graphics made the fastest graphics hardware you could find. Seeing the slowly growing push for OpenGL again I would love to see them push more of their own amazing hardware for the the PC/Mac platform since things like Irix and proprietary workstations aren't really a profitable market anymore unless you have one hell of a backing.
 
1.DEC- without them, computers would not be like they are today.
2.Osborne- Australian division; which later became Gateway 2000 Australia.
3.Compaq- the company, not the name.
 
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