Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

Digital Equipment Corporation
     
         (DEC) A computer manufacturer and software vendor.
     
        Before the {killer micro} revolution of the late 1980s,
        hackerdom was closely symbiotic with DEC's pioneering
        {time-sharing} machines.  The first of the group of hacker
        cultures nucleated around the {PDP-1} (see {TMRC}).
        Subsequently, the {PDP-6}, {PDP-10}, {PDP-20}, {PDP-11} and
        {VAX} were all foci of large and important hackerdoms, and DEC
        machines long dominated the {ARPANET} and {Internet} machine
        population.
     
        The first PC from DEC was a {CP/M} computer called {Rainbow},
        announced in 1981-82.
     
        DEC was the technological leader of the minicomputer era
        (roughly 1967 to 1987), but its failure to embrace
        {microcomputers} and {Unix} early cost it heavily in profits
        and prestige after {silicon} got cheap.  However, the
        {microprocessor} design tradition owes a heavy debt to the
        {PDP-11} {instruction set}, and every one of the major
        general-purpose microcomputer {operating systems} so far
        (CP/M, {MS-DOS}, {Unix}, {OS/2}) were either genetically
        descended from a DEC OS, or incubated on DEC {hardware} or
        both.  Accordingly, DEC is still regarded with a certain wry
        affection even among many hackers too young to have grown up
        on DEC machines.  The contrast with {IBM} is instructive.
     
        Quarterly sales $3923M, profits -$1746M (Aug 1994).
     
        DEC was taken over by {Compaq Computer Corporation} in 1998.
     
        {Home (http://www.digital.com/.html)}.
     
        (1999-06-03)