Orchid Technology
| Type | Private Company |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1982 |
| Founder | Le Nhon Bui |
| Defunct | 1994 |
| Fate | Acquired by , Inc. |
| Products |
|
Orchid Technology was a privately-held company founded by Le Nhon Bui in 1982.[1][2][3]
History[]
1982 to 1984[]
The company's original flagship product was its PCNet card, a 1 megabit-per-second LAN (networking) card for IBM PCs and clones.[4] Notably, the acronym LAN (Local Area Networking) is the Vietnamese word for "Orchid". Hence, the origin of the company name.
After this successful product, the company embarked on introducing high-performance add-in cards, most notably the LIM () which extended DOS out to 1M, Multi-purpose network cards that included RAM, clock, and Network COAX TCP-IP capabilities. Orchid developed its own operating system as well as one of the first 5 OEM's of Novell. Other products included PC Turbo, TinyTurbo and TurboVGA enhancement cards that included 186 and 286 processors. As the operating systems took on more resources Orchid made a switch back to its roots as PC board manufacturer.
1984 to 1986[]
From 1984 to 1986 the company switched to an Autocad video board manufacturer. Later, a variety of memory and video cards were introduced.
After 1988[]
In 1988, Orchid started designing and selling back-plane motherboards under the Privilege Systems Division. However, Orchid could not garner any significant market-share due to stiff competition from motherboard makers Micronics Computers, Inc., Mylex Corporation and American Megatrends Inc.(AMI), the original motherboard brand names in the industry.
1994[]
In August 1994, Orchid Technology was acquired by motherboard maker Micronics Computers, Inc.[5] Orchid sold their products through Direct to Fortune companies, OEMs, System Integrators and National Distributors such as Gates/FA, , Ingram and .
Graphic Cards[]
Orchid was known for its Righteous 3D,[6] Fahrenheit Video3D[7] and Kelvin 64[8] graphics accelerators. They also manufactured an array of multimedia products including SoundWave 32 and GameWave 32 and the award-winning Vidiola line of digital capture and playback systems.
See also[]
References[]
- ^ Sector 5: Computing : Orchid Technology Inc., Page 155, Stoy Hayward Unlisted Securities Market Year Book, Contributor:Cecil Parkinson, Publisher:Springer, 1990, ISBN 1349112852, 9781349112852
- ^ Add-on Boards compete for slot space, By Stephen Outing, InfoWorld, 2 Dec 1985, Page 26, ...says Le Nhon Bui, president of Orchid Technology, a Fremont, California, board maker. Orchid was one of the early pioneers in LAN technology...
- ^ Advert: Orchid Technology, PC Mag, Aug-Oct 1982, Page 203
- ^ Getting Hooked On PCnet, By Ron Jeffries, PC Mag, Nov 1983, Page 107
- ^ Micronics merges with Orchid in an $11 million deal, By Tom Quinlan, InfoWorld, 20 Jun 1994, Page 39
- ^ "Orchid Righteous 3D - Hardware museum". hw-museum.cz. Retrieved 2021-06-28.
- ^ "FAHRENHEIT VIDEO 3D". th99.infania.net. Retrieved 2021-06-28.
- ^ "Kelvin User's Manual for models: Kelvin EZKelvin 64" (PDF). www.elhvb.com.
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