DEC Systems Research Center
Encyclopedia
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
(DEC) in 1984, in Palo Alto, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
DEC SRC was founded by a group of computer scientists, led by Robert Taylor
Robert Taylor (computer scientist)
Robert William Taylor , known as Bob Taylor, is an Internet pioneer, who led teams that made major contributions to the personal computer, and other related technologies....
, who left the Computer Science Laboratory (CSL) of Xerox PARC
Xerox PARC
PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....
after an internal power struggle. SRC survived the takeover of DEC by Compaq
Compaq
Compaq Computer Corporation is a personal computer company founded in 1982. Once the largest supplier of personal computing systems in the world, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it was acquired for US$25 billion by Hewlett-Packard....
in 1998. When Compaq was acquired by Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
in 2002, SRC was merged with other corporate research labs.
After Taylor's retirement, the lab was directed by Roy Levin and then by Lyle Ramshaw.
Some of the important developments made at SRC include the Modula-3
Modula-3
In computer science, Modula-3 is a programming language conceived as a successor to an upgraded version of Modula-2 known as Modula-2+. While it has been influential in research circles it has not been adopted widely in industry...
programming language; the snoopy cache, used in the first multiprocessor workstation, the Firefly
DEC Firefly
The Firefly was a shared memory asymmetric multiprocessor workstation, developed by the Systems Research Center, a research organization within Digital Equipment Corporation. The first version built contained up to seven MicroVAX 78032 microprocessors...
, built from MicroVAX 78032
MicroVAX 78032
The MicroVAX 78032 is a microprocessor developed and fabricated by Digital Equipment Corporation that implemented a subset of the VAX instruction set architecture . The 78032 was used exclusively in DEC's VAX-based systems, starting with the MicroVAX II in 1985...
microprocessors; the first multi-threaded Unix system, Taos; the first user interface editor; the first networked window system, Trestle.
The current inhabitant of this building is A9.com
A9.com
A9.com is a subsidiary of Amazon.com based in Palo Alto, California that develops search engine technology. A9 currently has over 100 employees in its Palo Alto, Bangalore, and Dublin offices.A9 has worked in 3 areas over the years....
, a research part of Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
.
External links
- SRC Research Reports archive. archive of original site)
- HP SRC Classic Lab (site is dead, mirror)
- Firefly workstation