[1] : The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)

digital equipment corporation
     
         dec a computer manufacturer and software vendor.
     
        before the killer micro revolution of the late 1980s,
        hackerdom was closely symbiotic with dec's pioneering
        time-sharing machines.  the first of the group of hacker
        cultures nucleated around the pdp-1 see tmrc.
        subsequently, the pdp-6, pdp-10, pdp-20, pdp-11 and
        vax were all foci of large and important hackerdoms, and dec
        machines long dominated the arpanet and internet machine
        population.
     
        the first pc from dec was a cp/m computer called rainbow,
        announced in 1981-82.
     
        dec was the technological leader of the minicomputer era
        roughly 1967 to 1987, but its failure to embrace
        microcomputers and unix early cost it heavily in profits
        and prestige after silicon got cheap.  however, the
        microprocessor design tradition owes a heavy debt to the
        pdp-11 instruction set, and every one of the major
        general-purpose microcomputer operating systems so far
        cp/m, ms-dos, unix, os/2 were either genetically
        descended from a dec os, or incubated on dec hardware or
        both.  accordingly, dec is still regarded with a certain wry
        affection even among many hackers too young to have grown up
        on dec machines.  the contrast with ibm is instructive.
     
        quarterly sales $3923m, profits -$1746m aug 1994.
     
        dec was taken over by compaq computer corporation in 1998.
     
        home http://www.digital.com/.html.
     
        1999-06-03
     
     
see also:
killer micro time-sharing pdp-1 tmrc pdp-6 pdp-10 
pdp-20 pdp-11 vax arpanet internet 
cp/m rainbow microcomputers unix silicon 
microprocessor instruction set operating systems ms-dos os/2 
hardware ibm compaq computer corporation lt;homegt; 

Corporation >> C Words
Corporation, definition of term: Corporation
corporation_pag1.html

Equipment >> E Words
Equipment, definition of term: Equipment
equipment_pag1.html

Digital >> D Words
Digital, definition of term: Digital
digital_pag1.html

Digital Signatu >> D Words
Digital Signatu, definition of term: Digital Signatu
digital+signatu_pag1.html

Digital Watch >> D Words
Digital Watch, definition of term: Digital Watch
digital+watch_pag1.html

Digital Signal >> D Words
Digital Signal, definition of term: Digital Signal
digital+signal_pag1.html

Digital Multime >> D Words
Digital Multime, definition of term: Digital Multime
digital+multime_pag1.html

Digital Compute >> D Words
Digital Compute, definition of term: Digital Compute
digital+compute_pag1.html

Digital Display >> D Words
Digital Display, definition of term: Digital Display
digital+display_pag1.html

Digital Carrier >> D Words
Digital Carrier, definition of term: Digital Carrier
digital+carrier_pag1.html

Page 1 2 Next