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 3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. Though competitive in the field for several years in the late 1990s, by the end of 2000 it underwent one of the most high-profile demises in the history of the PC industry. It was headquartered in San Jose, California until, on the verge of bankruptcy, many of its intellectual assets (and many employees) were acquired by its rival, Nvidia Corporation. 3dfx Interactive filed for bankruptcy on October 15, 2002 Founded in 1994 by Ross Smith, Gary Tarolli and Scott Sellers (all SGI alumni) with backing from Gordie Campbell's TechFarm, 3dfx released its Voodoo Graphics chip in 1996. The company only manufactured the chips and some reference boards, and initially did not sell any product to consumers; rather, it acted as an OEM supplier for graphics card companies, which designed, manufactured, marketed, and sold their own graphics cards including the Voodoo. 3dfx gained fame due to their great success within the arcade market. At the time, arcades were a very visible place to go visit and see the latest in 3D gaming and technology. The first arcade machine that 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics hardware was used in was called ICE Home Run Derby, a game released in 1996. Later that year they were featured in more popular titles, such as Atari's San Francisco Rush and Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey.[3] 3Dfx received a lot of focus from the media because of the obvious graphical prowess of these titles, and that new game consoles such as Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation, and Sega Saturn would be showcases for similar next-generation graphics. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Western Digital Corporation (NYSE: WDC) (often abbreviated to WD) is a manufacturer of computer hard disk drives, and has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970 as General Digital, initially (and briefly) a manufacturer of MOS semiconductor test equipment. It rapidly became a specialty semiconductor maker, with startup capital provided by several individual investors and industrial giant Emerson Electric Company. In July, 1971, they adopted their current name, had moved to Newport Beach, California, and soon after introduced their first product, the WD1402A UART. Western Digital is currently the second largest hard drive company, after Seagate Technology. WDC is also notable because it is the first manufacturer which, in 2001, offered mainstream ATA hard disk drives with 8 MB (8 MiB) of cache buffer. At that time most desktop hard disk drives (HDDs) had 2 MB of buffer. WDC labeled the 8 MB models as "Special Edition" and distinguished them with the JB code (the 2 MB models had the BB code). The first 8 MB cache drive was the 100 GB WD1000JB and soon models with capacities from 40 GB to 250 GB and more followed. WDC advertised the JB models as a good choice for cost-effective file servers. In 2003, WD acquired most of the assets of bankrupt hard drive one-time market leading magnetic read-write head developer Read-Rite Corporation. In the same year, WDC offered the first 10,000 rpm Serial ATA HDD: The WD360GD "Raptor" with a capacity of 36 GB and an average access time of less than 6 milliseconds. Soon, the 74 GB WD740GD, which is also much quieter, followed and in 2005 Western Digital released the 150 GB version, the WD1500. As of 2004 the "Raptor" drives have 5 years of warranty, making them a more attractive choice for inexpensive storage servers, where a large number of drives in constant use increases the likelihood of a drive failure. In 2006, Western Digital introduced its MyBook line of mass market external hard drives that feature a compact book-like design. On the 7th October 2007 Western Digital released several editions of a single 1 TB hard drive - the largest in its MyBook line. In 2007 Western Digital adopted perpendicular recording technology in its line of notebook and desktop drives. This allowed it to produce notebook and desktop drives in the largest classes of the time. Western Digital also started to produce the energy efficient GP (Green Power)[3] range of drives notable for their very low power consumption and heat dissipation but surprisingly good performance.[4] in 2007 Western Digital announce the WD GP drive touting rotational speed "between 7200 and 5400 rpm" which is technically correct, the drive spins at 5405rpm, but the Green Power spin speed is not variable. On April 21, 2008, Western Digital announced the next generation of its 10,000 RPM SATA Raptor series of hard drives. The new drives, called WD VelociRaptor, feature 300 GB capacity and 2.5-inch platters enclosed in the IcePack™, a 3.5-inch mounting frame with a built-in heat sink. Western Digital claims the new drives are 35 percent faster than the previous generation Raptors. On September 12, 2008, Western Digital ships a 500gb 2.5 inch notebook hard drive which is part of their Scorpio Blue series of notebook hard drives. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Quantum Corporation (NYSE: QTM) is a manufacturer of tape drive, tape automation, data deduplication storage products and scalable file storage software, based in San Jose, California. From its founding in 1980 until 2000, it was also a major disk storage manufacturer (usually #2 in market share behind Seagate), and was based in Milpitas, California. By 2000, the hard drive market was getting squeezed. Personal computer sales were dropping, value drives had razor-thin margins and were only getting thinner, and several makers (notably Western Digital) were in trouble. Quantum decided to sell its hard drive division to Maxtor at this time. Maxtor continued most of Quantum's disk storage products and brands until it was acquired by Seagate Technology on December 21st, 2005. Quantum got its start when executives and designers from Shugart Associates, IBM and Memorex came up with an idea for an 8-inch hard drive that would achieve decent performance without the cost or complexity of using a full closed-loop servo system — a difficult task before the advent of dedicated servo ICs and readily-available DSPs. Quantum made a few missteps during the late 1990s. After hitting its peak with the Fireball AT 1080 and Fireball AT 1280 (both high-performance 5400 rpm models), it skewed briefly toward "value" drives that concentrated more on capacity than speed or performance. The Bigfoot drive was the best-known product of this era; it used a 5.25-inch form factor and larger disks to increase drive capacity without forcing an increase in areal density. However, the Bigfoot drives had slow spindles (the first ones ran at only 3600 rpm, long obsolete by then), and the larger disk diameters meant the heads had to move farther when seeking. They were thus generally disliked by "power users", and found their way mostly into inexpensive brand-name PCs. Quantum also applied the "Fireball" name (which had previously been reserved for the high-end 1080 and 1280 models) to a new "TM" model that featured better throughput, but slower seek times due to a 4500 rpm spindle. Later versions of the Fireball series reversed this trend, and eventually a 7200 rpm Fireball Plus ATA version was released, being one of the first mainstream consumer-oriented 7200 rpm drives. The first of the Plus series was the Fireball Plus KA, a drive available in sizes up to 18.2 gigabytes, and equipped with the new Ultra DMA 66 interface. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Maxtor Corporation was an American manufacturer of computer hard disk drives founded in 1982 and acquired by Seagate in 2006. As of December 2005, just prior to the acquisition, Maxtor was the world's third-largest manufacturer of hard disks. It now operates as a subsidiary of Seagate. In 2000, Maxtor purchased Quantum's hard drive business. This move made them larger than their rivals (notably Seagate), and also returned them to the server-SCSI market. In a deal worth US$1.9 billion, Maxtor was acquired by its rival Seagate in 2006. It is now used as a Seagate brand. Maxtor targeted both the server and desktop market, concentrating on disk capacity more than disk speed for desktops. After nine years of development, the original XT-series of drives had achieved a capacity of 1 GB. Maxtor sold the rights to the series to a company called Sequel in the mid-1990s, thus exiting the server SCSI drive market. Sequel was not a disk drive manufacturer; rather they specialized in refurbishing drives for the existing customer base. Teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in 1992, Maxtor's exit from the high capacity 5.25-inch SCSI market temporarily left a product void in the industry. Around this time, SCSI versions of the 7000 series drives were also discontinued and all engineering operations in San Jose were shut down in late 1993, leaving only the former MiniScribe design engineering staff. After turnover in the executive staff, Maxtor decided it had made a mistake, and having moved its headquarters to nearby Milpitas, gradually began rebuilding its Silicon Valley engineering staff. Maxtor, in recent years, like many other hard drive makers, had been expanding into the external hard disk market, with the Maxtor One-Touch II personal hard drive, which is marketed as convenient external storage for the home user. Maxtor had initially made efforts to get into the 2.5-inch hard disk market (notebook computer format) but, in the beginning of 2005, new management made the surprising decision to discontinue development in this field. This was considered by many industry watchers[who?] to be a particularly peculiar move, since the market for such hard drives (mainly notebook computers and MP3 players) was already experiencing rapid growth, with no signs of slowing down in the foreseeable future. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Compaq Computer Corporation was an American personal computer company founded in 1982, and is now a brand name of Hewlett-Packard. The company was formed by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto — former Texas Instruments senior managers. The name "COMPAQ" was derived from "Compatibility and Quality", as at its formation Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compatible computers. Once the largest supplier of personal computing systems in the world, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it merged with Hewlett-Packard. Prior to its takeover the company was headquartered in northwest unincorporated Harris County, Texas, United States. In 2001, Compaq engaged in a merger with Hewlett-Packard. Numerous large HP shareholders, including William Hewlett, publicly opposed the deal, which resulted in an impassioned public proxy battle between those for and against the deal. The merger was approved only after the narrowest of margins, and allegations of vote buying (primarily involving an alleged last-second back-room deal with Deutsche Bank) haunted the new company. It was subsequently disclosed that HP had retained Deutsche Bank's investment banking division in January 2002 to assist in the merger. HP had agreed to pay Deutsche Bank $1 million guaranteed, and another $1 million contingent upon approval of the merger. On August 19, 2003, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission charged Deutsche Bank with failing to disclose a material conflict of interest in its voting of client proxies for the merger and imposed a civil penalty of $750,000. Deutsche Bank consented without admitting or denying the findings.[8] Before the merger, Compaq's ticker symbol was CPQ. This was melded with Hewlett-Packard's previous symbol (HWP) to create the current symbol of HPQ. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Toshiba Corporation (Kabushiki-gaisha TÅshiba ?) (TYO: 6502) is a multinational conglomerate manufacturing company, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company's main business is in Infrastructure, Consumer Products, and Electronic devices and components. Toshiba-made Semiconductors are among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders. Toshiba is the world's fifth largest personal computer manufacturer, after Hewlett-Packard and Dell of the U.S., Acer of Taiwan and Lenovo of China. Toshiba was founded by the merging of two companies in 1939. One, Tanaka Seizosho (Tanaka Engineering Works), was Japan's first manufacturer of telegraph equipment and was established by Hisashige Tanaka in 1875. In 1904, its name was changed to Shibaura Seisakusho (Shibaura Engineering Works). Through the first part of the 20th century Shibaura Engineering Works became a major manufacturer of heavy electrical machinery as Japan modernized during the Meiji Era and became a world industrial power. The second company, Hakunetsusha, was established in 1890 and was Japan's first producer of incandescent electric lamps. It diversified into the manufacture of other consumer products and in 1899 was renamed Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric). From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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