At times DEC we innovative in ways that no hardware company today even comes close. But I guess innovation and commercial success do not go hand in hand. OK, this is abridged from Wikipedia, but much of it is true...
Digital supported/developed the ANSI standards, especially the ASCII and multinational character sets. The first versions of the C language and the Unix operating system ran on Digital's PDP series of computers Digital produced the first pure 64-bit microprocessor, AlphAXP. Digital collaborated on the Ethernet standard and made the commercially success it is today. Digital, though their Hierarchical Storage Controllers, delivered the first hardware RAID. Digital was the primary sponsor for the X Window System project (project Athena). Digital was one of the first businesses connected to the Internet with dec.com, registered in 1985, being one of the very first .com domains. Digital was also the first computer vendor to open a public website, on October 1, 1993. AltaVista, created by Digital, was one of the first comprehensive Internet search engines. (Although Lycos was earlier, it was much more limited.) DEC invented Digital Linear Tape (DLT) which was so much more reliable than helical scan technologies such as DAT. Digital were even developing the forerunner of the iPod (a hard-disk based MP3 player) back in 1998 before the merger with Compaq. Regards, Robert -- Dr. Robert Esnouf, University Research Lecturer and Head of Research Computing, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK Emails: rob...@strubi.ox.ac.uk Tel: (+44) - 1865 - 287783 and rob...@esnouf.com Fax: (+44) - 1865 - 287547