Computer History: DEC Digital Equipment Corp. Tech Archives Short Montage, PDP, VAX VMS HP

Computer History DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation: A 4-minute musical montage of memories from Digital’s Archives, PDP, VAX, and desktop terminals. DEC was founded in 1957 by Ken Olsen, Harlen Anderson and Scott Olsen. It rapidly became the global leader in minicomputer systems, known for the PDP (Programmed Data Processor) and VAX (Virtual Address Extension) product lines, the VMS (Virtual Memory System) operating system, DEC Alpha Servers, terminals and more.

A variety of factors caused the company’s decline in the1980’s, early 1990’s. DEC was eventually purchased by Compaq in 1998, and Compaq itself was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2002.

The legacy of DEC lives on as a highly influential company in the field of computer history, especially during the 1960’s to 1990’s. This brief montage is built on a 1997 intro presentation by DEC for its 40th anniversary, to which are added additional images and some rarely seen photos of early systems.

{Uploaded for educational and historical value only, by Computer History Archives Project.
Music score is titled “Icelandic Arpeggios” by DivKid.}

Dedicated to Employees and Friends of Digital Equipment Corporation.

For more information see:

DEC Archives, Al Kosow's Bitsavers.com

Doug Jones, PDP FAQ, University of Iowa
https://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/...

The Computer History Museum (PDP-1 Restoration Project)
https://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1...

The DEC Connection
http://www.decconnection.org

Article "The PDP-1" by George Michael
https://www.computer-history.info/Pag...

History of Digital Equipment Corporation: 1957 to Present (1978)
https://archive.computerhistory.org/r...

Video: Lyle Bickley explains the PDP-1
   • Lyle Bickley explains the PDP-1 (and we pl...  

Hewlett-Packard History Timeline
https://www.hpe.com/us/en/about/histo...