Encore Computer
More info
- Creator
- Gordon Bell, Henry Burkhardt III, Kenneth Fisher
- Released
- 1983–1990s
- Type
- Multiprocessor maker
The Multimax shared-memory multiprocessor, built by an all-star cast of DEC and Data General defectors.
Encore was founded in 1983 in Massachusetts by, among others, Gordon Bell (the VAX architect), Henry Burkhardt III and Kenneth Fisher. The Multimax was a symmetric multiprocessor: several National Semiconductor 32000 CPUs on a shared Nanobus with shared memory, running the UMAX flavour of Unix. Burkhardt had already co-founded Data General and would go on to start Kendall Square Research — the same handful of people turns up across half of Route 128's history. Encore lost its focus, bought up real-time divisions, and faded as an independent company through the 1990s.