The Silicon Underground

Dell buys Alienware, May 8, 2006

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 08 May 2026 11:00:40 +0000

On May 8, 2006, corporate and straitlaced Dell completed its purchase of Alienware, a maker of edgy gaming computers. It was a long courtship. Dell considered buying Alienware for four years before making the deal. And the tie-up of this

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Intel Pentium II introduced May 7, 1997

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 07 May 2026 11:00:46 +0000

29 years ago, on May 7, 1997, Intel introduced its Pentium II processor. It wasn’t the first followup to the very successful Pentium. But the Pentium II overcame problems with the Pentium Pro that kept it from gaining more widespread

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Adobe’s subscription model

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 06 May 2026 11:00:24 +0000

Before May 2013 there was always question about whether you actually owned software after you paid for it. But before May 6, 2013, you certainly had more control. That was the day Adobe switched to a subscription-only model for its

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First desktop computer: Datapoint 2200

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 05 May 2026 11:00:39 +0000

The first desktop computer dates to earlier than you probably think. And officially at least, it was an accident. Great inventions often are. But it was surprisingly similar to desktop computers that followed it. Design work on the first desktop

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How the Vectrex game console sunk a 124-year-old company

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 04 May 2026 11:00:08 +0000

On May 4, 1984, Milton Bradley, a leading producer of board games for 124 years, agreed to sell itself to Hasbro. Changes in the way people played games in the 80s, especially kids, put pressure on the company. In this

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Microsoft’s open sourcing of 86-DOS and what it means

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 03 May 2026 17:20:17 +0000

On April 28, 2026, Microsoft unexpectedly open sourced 86-DOS. This is the direct ancestor to PC DOS 1.0. I’ve written a number of things about the controversies around PC DOS 1.0 and early versions of MS-DOS, so of course I

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Ad Lib bankruptcy: May 1, 1992

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 01 May 2026 11:00:55 +0000

Ad Lib, Inc. was a Canadian manufacturer of sound cards founded by Martin Prevel, a former professor of music and vice-dean of the music department at the Université Laval in Quebec City. Ad Lib’s best known product was an eponymously

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Why Commodore went bankrupt in 1994

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:00:52 +0000

On April 29, 1994, Commodore announced it was bankrupt and was going out of business. Its demise was a long time coming. Arguably it had been inevitable for 10 years. But the reasons Commodore went bankrupt are often oversimplified and

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What happened to Palm Pilots?

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:00:46 +0000

Palm was a high-flying brand in the late 1990s, creating the first really popular personal data assistant. Then it seemed to vanish almost as quickly as it came. What happened to Palm Pilots, and the company who made them? On

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TRS-80 Model 100

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 13:03:48 +0000

The TRS-80 Model 100 was an early laptop computer manufactured by Kyocera in Japan and marketed in North America by Radio Shack. Kyocera’s own version, the Kyotronic-85, didn’t set any sales records. But the TRS-80 Model 100 and the line

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