DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation)
The maker of the minicomputer and, for two decades, the world's second-largest computer company — swallowed by Compaq just as the PC its founder had dismissed took over.
The firm was started in 1957 by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in a disused wool mill in Maynard, Massachusetts. The PDP line made computing cheap enough for labs and workshops rather than just mainframe halls; the PDP-8 (1965) was the first commercially successful minicomputer, and the PDP-11 (1970) one of the most influential computers ever built. The VAX with its VMS operating system (1977) cemented DEC as IBM's chief challenger.
In 1977 Olsen dismissed the idea that anyone would want a computer in their home, and the company missed the PC wave despite its engineering lead. The Alpha processor (1992) arrived too late to turn things around; Compaq bought the remains in 1998, and HP in turn absorbed Compaq in 2002.