Digital Equipment Corporation Superseded
Digital Equipment Corporation
KindCompany
Founded1957
Defunct1998
StatusSuperseded
FoundersKen Olsen & Harlan Anderson
FieldMinicomputers
Also known asDEC
Sourcebitsavers.org ↗
The minicomputer company — PDP and VAX lines that made computing departmental. Second only to IBM at its peak; sold to Compaq in 1998 after missing the PC it helped create.
1960198020002020
Created by Ken Olsen
Acquired by Compaq
Olsen and Anderson founded DEC in 1957 with $70,000 from Georges Doriot's AR&D — the first major American VC investment. The PDP-1 through PDP-11 made computing something a department could own; the VAX made it institutional. By the late 80s DEC was the world's second-largest computer company.
The PC destroyed its market. Olsen was forced out in 1992; Compaq bought the remains in June 1998 — then the largest tech acquisition ever — and was itself swallowed by HP four years later.