Cloud4Y ends its story about computers and computer brands that we met in the nineties. Previous Parts: 1 , 2 . We hope you were interested. Thanks for the comments and additions. Some of them helped to get acquainted with devices about which few have heard.

Intergraph

In 1970, M&S Computing was founded by two engineers from NASA. She became known as Intergraph (from Interactive Graphics) in 1980. Initially, it was a consulting firm that supported government agencies in the use of digital technology. But then she herself began to deal with computer equipment. Despite strong competition from IBM and DEC, Intergraph was still able to become a leader in CAD sales in North America by the end of 1988, and by 1990 - in second place in the world. But the company somehow missed the boom in personal computers, which in part caused a crash.

In the 1990s, Intergraph created its PC products with Intel processors. Intergraph claims that after several years of mutually beneficial work in 1996, Intel began to make unreasonable demands for free license rights for Intergraph patents already used in Intel microprocessors. When Intergraph refused, Intel tried to get Intergraph to grant access to patents. There were long courts that were won and lost. But in the end, Intergraph’s ability to compete in the PC and universal server market was undermined. In 1999, Intergraph left this business.

The power of Intergraph computers has always been in graphics. Not so much 3D graphics for virtual reality and animated films as 2D and 3D graphics for CAD / CAM-like applications. Therefore, their workstations had good graphics capabilities. And the devices themselves were very interesting. 3 models of the 2730 desktop workstation were sold in Germany: InterPro 2730-112 with one 19-inch monitor, InterPro 2730-122 with two monitors and InterPro 2730-352 with one 21-inch monitor. In our country, there were simpler models.

In the family of entry-level TD computers, released since 1996, we can recall the Pentium TD-20 machines (starting price $ 1495), Pentium Pro TD-200 systems (starting price $ 2595) and TD-310 workstations (starting price $ 4995), 410 and 610 (starting price $ 13,500) based on one, two and four Pentium Pro processors, respectively. The standard TD-20 and 200 configurations contained 256 KB of L2 cache, up to 256 MB of RAM, high-capacity EIDE hard disks, an eight-speed CD-ROM drive (optional for TD-20), and a pre-installed OS of your choice Windows 95 or Windows NT.

Intergraph

Intergraph TD — 610

Intergraph iPro

Labtam

The computer comes from ... Australia. A device on UNIX with a 32-bit National Semiconductor processor. Inside is a full 5.25-inch hard drive, an 8-inch and 5.25-inch floppy drive, and a QIC tape drive. Hard disk and floppy disk controllers have one common rx controller. According to some reports, this computer used Soviet developments (the device was built on the basis of the Novosibirsk processor Kronos 2.5).

Labtam entered the Soviet / Russian market more than 30 years ago, in the era of the embargo on the supply of high technology to the USSR, the first to offer its users Labtam-DELTA 3/486 Unix servers / stations running Unix SVR V. Rel.3 with original applications, intelligent UNIX terminals, the first X-terminals based on the RISC i80960. Since 1992, Labtam is an authorized distributor of TATUNG and SunSoft (1992-1998) in Russia and the CIS. The company professes the concept of “open systems” and delivers the latest computing systems based on SPARC and Intel platforms and software to the Russian market.

After 1998, the company left the Russian market, but exists today.

Labtam

Prime

Prime Computer is a manufacturer of minicomputers from Massachusetts. Model Prime 9955, released in 1985, brought the company tremendous popularity. The device worked at a speed of 4.0 MIPS, had 8-16 MB of memory, 2.7 GB of disk space and a 9-track magnetic tape. Things were going so well that the water company was the 6th largest in the world in the minicomputer sector. In 1987, Prime Computer introduced an alternative line of computers based on the Intel 80386 EXL-316 series running the Unix operating system. In the early 1990s, due to the advent of PCs and the decline of the minicomputer industry, Prime was pushed out of the market. But some devices were found on the territory of the countries of the former USSR for several years.

Robotron

Robotron, a now defunct German company, was the largest electronics manufacturer in East Germany. It was founded in 1969, but on June 30, 1990 Robotron was liquidated, and its units were transformed into joint-stock companies. In the 1990s, these companies were either sold (Siemens Nixdorf was among the buyers) or also liquidated. Despite this, computers were found on the secondary market for several more years. Popular models were Robotron CM 1910 (there is an article on Habré ) and Robotron 1715. By and large, I have nothing more to say about this computer brand. Add?

Upd : added. Here is an interesting article about the Robotron EC 1834 . Thanks to the author (kerenskiy) for a detailed review and rstepanov for the link found.

Robotron 1715 and 1910

Robotron 1715

Robotron CM1910

Rover computers

In 1991, the future Rover Computers company was born. The core business of the group was the production and distribution of consumer and commercial electronics and technology under several brands, including RoverBook, RoverMate, RoverPC, RoverShot and RoverLight.

Initially, it was a service and repair shop for a PC called “DVM-service”, and in 1993 it was transformed into a company “DVM-Group”. Founder of Rover Computers Sergey Shunyaev set out to create a domestic production of computer equipment that could compete with products from foreign manufacturers not only in price but also in quality. So in 1995, the RoverBook project was born, within the framework of which a domestic laptop built on the basis of Intel 486 appeared on the computer market of the country, which became the first portable computer for an entire generation of Russians. RoverComputers became an OEM partner of Intel Corporation in Russia, and RoverBook occupied more than a third of the country's market in the notebook segment. customers with their reliability and low price.Also in 1997, DVM-Group merged with the White Wind multidisciplinary structure, so branded devices can be bought in even more stores.

Many still remember the four series of portable PCs based on the Pentium processor with 166 MHz MMX: Voyager, Explorer, Partner and Discovery. Voyager and Explorer are the most expensive of them. The Voyager series is represented by RoverBook Voyager Plus, an all-in-one computer (16 MB RAM, 2.16 GB HDD, 12.1 inch screen, eight-speed CD-ROM, $ 4444) and RoverBook Voyager SL - lightweight version of the previous model (interchangeable CD-ROM and hard drive, price 1886-3688 dollars). Explorer SeriesThere are also two models: RoverBook Explorer - a workstation under Windows NT (32 MB RAM, 2.16 GB HDD, 12.1 inch screen, eight-speed CD-ROM, price - $ 4978) and RoverBook Explorer M - multi-purpose a portable computer for working with graphics (16 MB RAM, 1.44 MB HDD, CD-ROM with a tenfold speed, the price is $ 4989). The less expensive Partner and Discovery models cost $ 1,600-2,395.

In 2008, unable to withstand the crisis, the company ended its existence.

SGI (Silicon Graphics, Inc., Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS)

SGI is an American computer company founded in 1982. SGI has made a great contribution to the development of computer graphics; it is known for developing the OpenGL graphics library. Thanks to the graphic workstations created by SGI, dinosaurs came to life on the movie screens in the movie Jurassic Park, and Forrest Gump was filmed. Graphics stations Silicon Graphics Indy ($ 5700 for the minimum configuration in 1993), Iris Indigo ($ 20-40 thousand) were well known. SGI workstations have always been characterized by high productivity and had a very high price (up to several tens of thousands of dollars for a top-level machine). Only large enough organizations could afford SGI computers.

In February 1996, Silicon Graphics entered the supercomputer market, absorbing Cray Research for $ 767 million, which at that time was in great financial difficulty. But in 2000, Silicon Graphics sold its Cray Research division to Tera Computer. This was due to the appearance of graphical capabilities on ordinary PCs and the ability of clusters of Linux and BSD-based computers to perform many SGI device tasks. SGI's premature announcement of its transition from MIPS to Itanium and its unsuccessful beginnings in IA-32 architecture systems (Visual Workstation line, ex-Intergraph Zx10 line and Linux SGI 1000 series servers) undermined market confidence in SGI products. The company had to fold.

SGI Visual Workstation met in our country. Unlike other products that used the 64-bit MIPS RISC architecture, the line used Intel Pentium II and III processors and came with Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 as the operating system instead of IRIX. However, the Visual Workstation 320 and 540 models differed from the architecture of IBM-compatible PCs using the SGCS ARCS firmware instead of the traditional BIOS. Internal components adapted from his MIPS-based products and other proprietary components made them incompatible with equipment designed for standard PCs, and therefore prevented other versions of Microsoft Windows from running, especially Windows 9x.

SGI 540 workstation

Siemens

In 1957, Siemens introduced the world's first transistor computer in series production: the 2002 series computer system, which marked the beginning of the widespread use of electronic data processing technology in a wide variety of fields. And in the 90s, the company again became known in the computer market. This is not about Fujitsu Siemens Computers, which appeared in 1999. And not about Nixdorf , which I spoke about earlier. In 1992, the world's fastest neural computer, Synapse-1 (Synapse-1), was released. It was 8000 times more powerful than a traditional workstation and in an hour could “learn” as much as a neural network could be learned on a regular computer in a whole year.

In 1996, SIVIT (Siemens Virtual Touchscreen) was released - the first computer that responded to finger movements without using a mouse, keyboard or screen. Touch panels, displays, and screens in this device have replaced the projection of images from a video projector onto a smooth surface. Instead of a mouse and keyboard, the user's hand was monitored by an infrared system, which allowed to recognize finger movements and convert them into commands. One of the possible areas of application are help terminals. This technology also made life easier for people with multiple sclerosis and helped with the operating room.

In the mid-90s in Russia, you can quickly meet such cars as the Siemens PG-750. It was one of the first portable PCs (Weight 20 kg, height 21 cm, depth 50 cm, width 45 cm. Actually, in fact, it was a PG-750 programmer for Simatic-5. At that time, such devices came complete with equipment, so where the fifth Simatics stood. They even stood at some hydroelectric power stations, but in fact, both the Siemens PG-750 and its sister model Siemens PG730 were in fact a large laptop with a TFT screen.

Siemens PG750

Sinclair research

Sinclair Research Ltd was founded in 1961 and has been manufacturing electronic watches, portable televisions and instruments. The company was remembered for the world thanks to the wonderful machine, ZX Spectrum. This is an 8-bit home computer based on the Zilog Z80 microprocessor. In the 1980s, the ZX Spectrum was one of the most popular computers in Europe, and its many clones in the early 1990s became widespread in the former USSR / CIS. In just 17 months, more than a million of these cars were sold. But if the ZX Spectrum ZX82 set sales records, then subsequent models were not well received by the market. Due to the unimportant financial situation in 1986, the founder of the company, Clive Sinclair, sold the rights to the entire line of Amstrad computers. And already this company released ZX Spectrum +2 (1986),ZX Spectrum +3 (1987) and ZX Spectrum + 2A / + 2B (1987). It was the Spectrum clones created by reverse engineering based on the original ZX Spectrum 48/128 using the element base available in the USSR that in the 90s became the favorite device of most computer enthusiasts living in the territory of the former USSR.

Suprimex

The Soviet-German joint venture "Suprimeks" appeared on 05/17/1993, and finally disappeared on 10/07/2002. Reviews about the company are very controversial. Some remembered it as a financial pyramid like MMM, others as a woodworking enterprise, which was largely facilitated by aggressive advertising on TV. An advertising agent of that time recalled: Suprimex set a task for us so that “no one understood what it was, but the name was remembered, plus associations with woodworking.” The result was a video where a man with a naked torso drills a wooden board, and a slender woman with long curly hair stands at the window and looks at him. The wind seductively sways her clothes. When the last sawdust falls to the floor, the viewer sees the inscription “Suprimex” drilled on the board. I notethat the artistic directors of all this disgrace are Fedor Bondarchuk and Stepan Mikhalkov. What does the computer have to do with it? Well, there was such logic, although they also released computer devices. If there is anything to add, please comment.

, Suprimex

Summit

The Belarusian-American joint venture Summit Systems (aka Summit Technologies) was registered with the USSR Ministry of Finance on December 27, 1990. The founders are American companies Chips & Technologies Inc., Management Partnerships International (MPI), Dialog JV, its Minsk branch, and Minsk Airport -2. Statutory fund - 24 million rubles. 75% of the statutory fund was contributed by American partners in foreign currency, 25% - by Soviet participants (in rubles). Starting this year, the company begins to produce certified Belarusian-made PCs manufactured under the Summit brand. The company produced a wide range of computer equipment, from office computers with a standard set of optimal functions to special PCs that are subject to special requirements, as well as Summit Systems servers. In the first year it was planned to produce from 15 to 25 thousand.personal computers at a price of 47-50 thousand rubles.

In fact, IBM-compatible ModTech I computers entered the market, the production of which Chips & Technologies itself started shortly before. The processor, coprocessor and cache memory of these computers are combined into a removable processor module, which allows you to turn, for example, AT-386 into 486 in a few minutes. Replacing the module is 5-10 times cheaper than buying a new computer, and users could save the money needed to update the fleet of computer technology. Users were offered 386, 486sx and 486dx processor units with clock frequencies up to 50 MHz.

Due to the successful start of work and the fact that there was a demand for devices, the company somehow survived all the crises, and continues to work today.

Sun

Sun Microsystems is an American company founded in 1982. SUN is an acronym for Stanford University Networks. It was one of the largest manufacturers of servers and workstations based on proprietary SPARC RISC processors, standard x86 architecture servers based on Opteron microprocessors (AMD) and Xeon microprocessors (Intel). It is known as a developer of NFS and Java technologies, as well as open source software support. source code, in particular OpenSolaris, OpenOffice.org, and MySQL.

Starting with the Sun-4 and SPARCstation line in 1987, the company began to use its own SPARC microprocessor (32-bit SPARC V7 architecture). In 1995, Sun launched the first UltraSPARC processor in the new, 64-bit SPARC V9 architecture. Chips for SPARC processors, commissioned by Sun Microsystems, were handled by Texas Instruments. In the mid-1990s, the company focused primarily on the supply of highly scalable servers using the principle of symmetric multiprocessing. The 8-processor SPARCserver 1000 and 20-processor SPARCcenter 2000 were produced.

SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter- product lines of workstations and servers based on the microprocessor architecture SPARC, developed by Sun Microsystems Corporation. The first product in the SPARCstation line was the SPARCstation 1 workstation (also known as the Sun 4/60), introduced in 1989. The series was very popular and first introduced the Sun-4c architecture, a variant of the Sun-4 architecture previously used in the Sun 4/260. Due in part to the delay in the development of more advanced Motorola processors, the SPARCstation series has been a significant success in the industry. The latest model released under the SPARCstation brand was SPARCstation 20. In 1995, the SPARCstation line was replaced by the Sun Ultra line. Ultra Series machines were sold during the dot-com boom and became the best-selling line of computers manufactured by Sun Microsystems.The SPARCstation and SPARCserver products of the same model were almost identical systems: the only difference was the lack of a “graphics card” in the “server” systems.

Sun

Sun SPARCstation 1+

Sun Ultra 1 Unix workstation

Tulip

Tulip Computers NV is a Dutch manufacturer of PC clone computers. It was founded in 1979 as Compudata, an importer of American microcomputers. But already in 1983, the company released its own PC: Tulip System-1, one of the first 16-bit computers. To achieve 100% compatibility, the company simply copied the IBM PC, including the BIOS. IBM sued, and after years of litigation, Tulip and IBM broke the world in 1989 with an unknown amount. Two years earlier, in 1987, Compudata changed its name to Tulip Computers. By and large, in the 90s Tulip was not marked by anything. But he became famous among computer enthusiasts when he acquired the Commodore brand in September 1997.

The Dutch computer got into our selection, since live specimens were found in our country until the end of the 90s. Curiously, according to information from the PC Museum , the Tulip Vision Line 486 computer was used in one rather large organization until 1997. This conclusion was made on the remaining programs. In particular, the device was used as a server running the Novel program. The machine had two HDD SCSI drives of 1 Gb and RAM 24 Mb.

Tulip System PC Compact with COMPUDATA Monitor

VIST | Vist

The company "Vist" was formed in 1992 in Moscow. It was planned that this would be a powerful dealer network with representative offices in the regions of Russia, as well as a manufacturer and supplier of equipment of its own production. Since its inception, Whist has been successfully developing, which was facilitated by the constant increase in demand for computers in the regions and the popularity of “branded” computers. Increased competition in the sale of branded equipment forced the company to change its policy, reorienting to selling primarily its own computers.

In 1997-98, “Whist” held about 20% of the Russian computer equipment market. The IDC research agency even awarded the company the title of Overall computer market leader. Around the same years, Vist Corporation became one of the largest European manufacturers of computer equipment. Zelenograd plant "QUANT" was purchased and converted into assembly lines for the production of laptops, monitors, servers and peripherals. The plant could produce up to 1 million computers a year, it had a fully automated warehouse, test benches and a workshop with a heat chamber for testing finished systems. According to the level of applied technologies and equipment, the plant for that period, the KVANT plant was one of the top five best computer factories in Europe.

Produced by the company and laptops. For example, VIST model 86. In fact, the laptop was made by Taiwanese OEM manufacturer Clevo. Clevo itself produced and sold these laptops under the brand name Magitronic. If you wonder what it looked like and what the filling was, then here is a review .

In September 1998, Vist introduced new models of its technology to journalists: the Vist Black Jack II computer and the Vist-Forward AD4 and Vist-Forward SC4 servers. Black Jack II was based on Intel Celeron 300A / 333 and Pentium II microprocessors with clock frequencies of 266 - 333 MHz. The price ranged from $ 685 to $ 890. Newer models included 15-inch VIST or Samsung SyncMaster 500B monitors. A wireless keyboard with infrared control was supplied. The server was built on the basis of Intel Pentium II Xeon 400 MHz microprocessors. The amount of RAM could reach 8 GB, and the total memory of the disk subsystem - 109 GB. The case design is designed for 12 drives with an Ultra Wide SCSI interface and hot swappability. The base price of Vist-Forward AD4 was about 16 thousand dollars, and Vist-Forward SC4 - 10 thousand dollars.

The 1998 crisis crippled the company; it broke up into several microenterprises. But the last straw was the murder of one of the founders. The company has not recovered from this shock.

Laptop whist

SKB VT "Iskra"

In the early 90s, at some state-owned enterprises there was another example of Soviet computer engineering - Iskra-1030. This is a Soviet IBM PC / XT-compatible personal computer based on the 181086 processor (analog of Intel 8086) had the following characteristics: HDD - 5508 (Bulgarian IZOT), Floppy - 5323-01 (also IZOT) - double-sided, 80 cyl. 720 kb, but it worked "across the track" - 40 cyl. 360 kBytes. Equipped with an imported matrix printer; Other models were also released .

Spark

Mikrosha (LEMZ)

In 1986, the Lianozovsky Electromechanical Plant released the RK-compatible model of Mikrosh, one of the first Soviet personal computers. It was an 8-bit microcomputer, a clone of Radio-86RK, partially compatible with the original. Like Radio 86RK, the computer was made on a set of BIS K580. But the basic RAM has been increased to 32 Kbytes, the programmable timer KR580VI53 has appeared. The estimated retail price of the computer was 550 rubles. It was possible to meet for sale in 1990-1991, which is why it was on our list. Mikrosh weighed about 3 kg: a 1.4 kg system unit, a 1.3 kg power supply, and a 200 gram modulator. Clock frequency - 1.8 MHz, power consumption - no more than 20 watts. The first copies of Mikrosha were a unique thing - perfect armored vehicles. The case, until there was a mold, was aluminum, perhapsmilled from a single piece. Device Detailshere .

Why did Mikrosh become one of the most famous models of Soviet PCs? Everything is corny - marketing, advertising. In 1986, an advertisement about Mikrosh PC appeared on the cover of Radio magazine, in 1987 - on the cover of the monthly science-popular magazine Science and Life (No. 7). As for the prototype of Mikroshi, the home-made Soviet computer Radio-86RK, it deserves a large separate article.

Mikrosh Heading

Triline

Despite the sufficient popularity of the company, information on it is not too much. It was founded in March 1994. Thanks to her competent market positioning, she was able to win the trust of customers, and three years later she opened the first specialized salon with consumables and various technical equipment. And a year later, in 1998, a computer salon was opened in which "branded" computer equipment was sold. In fact, it was a collector, not a manufacturer. Moreover, the company for a long time could not decide which direction to deal with in the first place. And I tried to be in time everywhere. So, in 1999, Triline was officially recognized as one of the best regional companies for the sale of HP supplies. The “computer” story of “Triline” continued, the company exists to this day.

What else is useful to read on the blogCloud4Y

→ Life of a data byte
→ Can a ship be hacked?
→ Easter eggs on topographic maps of Switzerland
→ How the hacker’s mother got into prison and infected the boss’s computer
→ How the bank “broke”

Subscribe to our Telegram channel so as not to miss another article. We write no more than twice a week and only on business.

Computer brands of the 90s, part 3, final