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QOTD: Which Dead Companies Do You Miss?
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We've come quite a long way in technology and general computing, and yet, relatively, we've only just begun.
Throughout the years, many companies have come and gone. Some companies died out completely, while others retreated to overseas business. Some companies still exist, but have exited the market that they were once famous for. An example of a company that is still very much around, but no longer does business in what we all recognize it for is Matrox. I remember when I wrote some of the first reviews of its products and was very much connected with Matrox on an engineering level. Now, the company is focused on business and enterprise products exclusively.
Another favorite company of mine was Aureal. It made the infamous Aureal 3D chip, which was on several cards, including the Diamond Monster Sound. At the time, when the concept of surround sound was just making its way onto the PC, and most people were confined to two desktop speakers, Aureal made a huge impact. Aureal's A3D API was very impressive in creating realistic surround sound from just two speakers. Aureal's intellectual property was eventually bought by Creative.
During those years, innovation was very rapid and great products appeared all the time. And who could forget 3dfx? I don't even have to explain what it did for the gaming community. For those who don't know, 3dfx was the company that brought high-performance true 3D graphics to the mainstream. I owned the very first Diamond Monster 3D--and every 3dfx product that was released thereafter. 3dfx's assets and intellectual property were eventually bought out by Nvidia and helped to create the Nvidia we know today. SLI anyone?
The question of the day is: Which dead companies, or which companies that exited, do you miss?
It can be any company, from hardware to software.
Source : Tom's Hardware US
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what about all those "other" x86 chipmakers? i remember upgrading an old pentium 75Mhz to an IDT Winchip 180Mhz. it was kind of cool for there to be more than two possible chip makers, even if they were all intel designs.
Gainward I don't know why they pulled out of the United States but there cards were top notch there golden sample was so sweet a chip that was overclockable with a warranty and you knew you where getting top tier stuff
Definitely 3DFx.
Voodoo, Voodoo, who-do-what-you-dont-dare-to-people!
Damned, I miss adventure games!! Ok, I know it's not a company, but those games were awesome and i miss them! I remember spending days playing Monkey Island, Indiana Jone, Full Throttle, Heart of China, Dig...wtf happened to Lucas Arts, Sierra and all those other companies????
Probably Commodore. I was an Amiga user until about 1998. The Amiga is still "kind of" alive (Amiga OS 4.1 was released in September 2008), but it's not the same as it was owning an Amiga in the mid 90's.
3dfx would be a close second. I've owned a Voodoo1, Voodoo3 and Voodoo5 before moving on to Nvidia and then ATI. Good times.
I miss Labtec speakers, they could put Logitech in their place...now they make cheap ass headsets in china or some crap.
Aureal and 3dfx WOOT GLIDE!
Origin, Interplay, an on a different note - Aldus
Hmm.. Technics! How I miss Technics! And no, Panasonic can't live up to what Technics stood for.
Also, Sega for making consoles and PowerVR for making consumer products.. I guess we could call them "semi-dead" hehe.
When I read the title on the homepage I immediately thought of 3dfx and I got a big smile on my face when I saw the picture above ! So 3dfx it is.
I just hope that if you run the same article in 2 or 3 years that people won't be responding with AMD ....... They have to stay alive so we have someone to keep Intel in line.
3dfx totally rocked my world. Hell, its really the only reason I'm loyal to nVidia. I was rocking a Voodoo2 in SLI with (2)12MB cards and a Pentium 2 @333MHz. Talk about killer frame rates with Quake.
As mentioned Commodore and more especially the Amiga, followed by Sierra Online Pre Sell out days. Ken & Roberta made some cool games back in the day. Also as mentioned 3DFX, but if the Amiga was still around then 3dfx might not be as missed...
Packard Bell! My first PC, sadly they aren't around anymore.
Sinclair, DEC - Digital Corp., Commodore, NeXT.
All had great products somewhere time: Spectrum, Alpha unix servers, Amiga and the NeXT Cube. And 3dfx of course.
Commodore, 3dfx, Byte Magazine, "a Real Comdex". I too owned almost all the 3dfx cards, every Commodore from the Vic 20 to the Amiga 4000. Miss the kind of reporting and coverage Byte magazine used to do - perhaps there is just nothing like that left going on...
Big boring companies, doing the slow "evolutionary" waddle for the share holders. Not much left, everybody is making "toasters" now (and not the Video kind either!)
.... I miss Circuit City? does that count?
.... I miss Circuit City? does that count?
Hehe, sure, why not
/ Tuan
Showing my age a bit, but I miss Digital Equipment Corp. The PDP-11 is the bast 16-bit processor ever made, or so say I. The Alpha would be the fastest ship on the market if it kept up with modern chip manufacturing tech.
Sierra On-Line (best game company in history), Maxtor (never failed!), Commodore (I had an Amiga 1000 as a kid).
Packard Bell! My first PC, sadly they aren't around anymore.
Yes, they are! At least here in Europe. They were bought by Acer I think, but their product range still continues.
How about Quantum? It was my first HDD; I was thinking Seagate as a second hand HDD manufacturer, with Quantum, IBM and WD being top notch..
EPYX!
3DFX without a doubt would be at the top of the list.I only had one 3DFX graphics card a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI card but the games and simulations with that card had 3 dimensional graphics that ATI and NVidia could not quite replicate with 3DFX's glide.Sure they could use Open glide but it wasn't quite the same.
I miss Ensemble Studios already. Age of Empires 1 and 2 are one of my favorite pc games of all time.
Hopefully one of the spinoff companies will make Age of Empires 4!
Abit. Barely gone, but I'm still not looking forward to choosing another motherboard manufacturer when I build my next system.
Its not a company, but I do miss Full Throttle. Lucas Arts never made a remake...
Packard Bell! My first PC, sadly they aren't around anymore.
They're still pretty large in europe.
Microprose!!!! where are they now??? I miss Xcom
IronRyan21 :
Packard Bell! My first PC, sadly they aren't around anymore.
WHAT?!?!?!
I actually work as a PackardBell technician in Argentina.in one of their technical services (also LG, HP, DLINK, ACER, TOSHIBA, and so on...)
And i have two notebooks. packardBell S18P (mini notebook really cool) and a EOLITE (ECS) crappy notebook...
And as for old dead companies... i loved my voodoo 3 with 16Mb. it rocked my world. i changed it for a TNT2 and 3 days later i bought a geforce 2 ultra.
I really miss 3dfx.... it was inspirational to see them fighting the growing Nvidia...
And actually my second company still exists, but i dont know what it does now. but i once had a cyrix CPU (66Mhz of Pure Power) and i remember how good was to have several CPU companies out there...
MicroProse(F-19 was really good), Jane's Combat Simulations(Fleet Command, Longbow, WWII Fighter etc.), STB Systems Inc. (I Still have my Velocity 4400)
US ROBOTICS? are they still around? back in the 56k dial up days they were the giants.