DEC

DEC, short for Digital Equipment Corporation, was an American computer company established in 1957 by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in Maynard, Massachusetts. It rose to prominence as a leading maker of minicomputers and related technologies, helping to popularize smaller, more affordable computing equipment for business, scientific, and government use.

DEC's product line defined much of the early minicomputer era. The PDP series—PDP-1, PDP-8, PDP-11—were influential, with the PDP-11 (introduced 1970) fostering a large software ecosystem and widespread hardware compatibility. In the late 1970s DEC introduced the VAX line (Virtual Address eXtension), a 32-bit architecture that became a standard family for business and scientific workloads. In the 1990s the company developed the Alpha (AXP) RISC processors, aimed at high-performance servers and workstations. The company also produced storage devices such as DECtape and disk systems, and a range of peripheral equipment.

DEC's operating systems included TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 for the larger DECsystem/10 and DECsystem/20 lines, RT-11 and RSX-11 for smaller systems, VMS (later OpenVMS) on VAX hardware, and Ultrix, a Unix variant. DECnet provided a historically significant set of networking protocols that enabled DEC systems to interconnect in distributed networks. The company fostered a broad ecosystem, with extensive documentation, software, and third-party support.

Corporate history and fate: DEC remained independent until it was acquired by Compaq in 1998 for about $9.6 billion; Compaq itself was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2002. After the acquisitions, the DEC brand was gradually retired from new products, though its technologies and influence persisted through the resulting platforms and software.

Legacy: DEC's contributions to minicomputing, networked computing, and operating system design had a lasting impact on the computer industry. The PDP family, VAX systems, and the OpenVMS and Unix derivatives helped shape enterprise computing and set standards for system architecture and software ecosystems.