Forgotten tech giants that shaped the modern PC landscape

Let's start with the company Adaptec. Its ASPI standard was decisive in shaping communication interfaces with data carriers. It made managing disks and drives so much easier that Microsoft licensed it and included it in Windows 95. During the years when boot floppy disks and IDE drives were common, Adaptec solutions were ubiquitous in PCs. The situation changed permanently only with the popularization of USB and SATA standards. Microsemi acquired Adaptec.

Compaq is another name synonymous with PCs. It became renowned for developing the first legally made IBM PC clone, followed by the Compaq Portable series of computers. However, the key product was the Compaq Deskpro from 1986, which was the first PC based on the 386 processor, outpacing IBM. Today's PCs are more similar to the Deskpro than to the original IBM PC, a situation notably seen with the IBM PS/2.

Despite the reputation of its workstations and the innovativeness of its iPAQ palmtops, Compaq couldn't withstand competition and was acquired by HP. Today's HP driver packages are still called "SoftPaqs," a nod to Compaq's support department. The brand was closed in 2013, and the trademark was later licensed to an Indian TV manufacturer for the local market. It's unfortunate because today's computers might look completely different without Compaq, and the transition to the 32-bit world would have taken longer.

Oak Technology was a company that created the ATAPI standard and the CD-ROM access driver—famously known as OAKCDROM.SYS. It was used for reading CDs during the Windows 3.x era, with its usage extending to boot disks until 2000. Despite its significant contributions, Oak struggled to sell its innovative graphics chips, leading to a crisis and eventual liquidation. Following a series of acquisitions, Oak's intellectual property is now owned by Qualcomm.

Crystal Semiconductor may be a slightly lesser-known name, although it was familiar to sound card owners for whom Creative's offerings were too expensive. Crystal's chips are found in affordable OEM computers and laptops and provide a good alternative to Sound Blasters. The company's success caught the attention of Cirrus Logic, which acquired Crystal in 1991. Over a decade later, the brand was discontinued, and Crystal’s solutions were integrated into Cirrus Logic products, which now produce amplifiers, converters, and hardware codecs.

Abit was a motherboard manufacturer that enjoyed its heyday at the turn of the century. Its success was attributed to designs like the BP6—a dual-processor board favored by overclockers. However, the company fell victim to the Asian capacitor plague. Combined with existing financial troubles, Abit was sold and closed, with its patents absorbed by the Chinese company USI.

3dfx is a brand beloved by gaming enthusiasts over thirty. It was responsible for transforming graphics cards into full-fledged PC GPUs, starting with the Voodoo chipset, a 3D accelerator. Initially, these accelerators were separate cards, and integrated designs appeared only later. 3dfx was eventually surpassed by competitors, mainly NVIDIA, which acquired 3dfx at the beginning of 2001.

Although later known for its audio equipment, Conexant was primarily recognized in PCs due to its modems. Before the advent of broadband, the most common way to connect to the Internet was through a modem. Conexant did not disappear because modems became obsolete but due to a series of acquisitions and divisions throughout its history. Shortly after a major driver issue, the last of these was its acquisition by Synaptics in 2017.

In the second part, we will discuss processors advertised as fully compatible alternatives to the 386 and Pentium and explore why many potential Intel competitors hesitated to challenge its dominance.