Tecmar was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 manufacturer of PC

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

 enhancement products based in Solon, OH. The company was founded in 1974 and their first products were data acquisition

Data acquisition

Data acquisition is the process of sampling signals that measure real world physical conditions and converting the resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer. Data acquisition systems typically convert analog waveforms into digital values for processing...

 boards for the first generation of microcomputer

Microcomputer

A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...

s. Popular products included the Scientific Solutions LabMaster series of boards for S-100

S-100 bus

The S-100 bus or Altair bus, IEEE696-1983 , was an early computer bus designed in 1974 as a part of the Altair 8800, generally considered today to be the first personal computer...

 and Apple computers.

In 1981, at the first COMDEX

COMDEX

COMDEX was a computer expo held in Las Vegas, Nevada, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually second only to the German CeBIT, and by many accounts one of the largest trade shows in any industry sector...

 show in Las Vegas, IBM introduced the IBM PC and Tecmar introduced the first of many add-in cards for the IBM PC. These products included the Scientific Solutions LabMaster, LabTender, IEEE-488

IEEE-488

IEEE-488 is a short-range digital communications bus specification. It was created for use with automated test equipment in the late 1960s, and is still in use for that purpose. IEEE-488 was created as HP-IB , and is commonly called GPIB...

, BaseBoard, TimeMaster, GraphicsMaster, memory expansion boards, external hard disk drives and tape drive

Tape drive

A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and performs digital recording, writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and long archival stability.A tape drive provides...

s. In 1985, Tecmar incorporated Scientific Solutions Inc. and used this new company to design and distribute the data acquisition products. Their early achievements are now well known and expressed by their corporate saying: Scientific Solutions First in PC Data Acquisition.


In 1986, Tecmar was acquired by the technology holding company Rexon

Rexon

Rexon Business Machines, later Rexon, Inc., was a manufacturer of small business computer systems founded by Ben C. Wang in 1978 in Culver City, California. It also became a major manufacturer of tape drives and related products. At its height, it played a significant role in the development and...

. While Scientific Solutions continued to design and market scientific and multimedia products, Tecmar concentrated on data storage. In 1991, Rexon purchased two other tape drive manufacturers, WangTek and WangDAT

WangDAT

WangDAT was a magnetic tape data storage company founded in 1988 by Ben C. Wang. This was Dr. Wang's third startup company that he founded that manufactured tape drives. The company manufactured Digital Data Storage drives, which store computer data on Digital Audio Tape media. The company was...

 to add to the Tecmar product line. Then in 1995, while Rexon was having financial difficulties, Tecmar was sold to Legacy Storage Systems and Scientific Solutions continued as an independent company focused on the original Tecmar product line of data acquisition equipment. Three years later, in 1998, Tecmar was sold to a new holding company, TTI, which positioned Tecmar as a comprehensive magnetic tape data storage

Magnetic tape data storage

Magnetic tape data storage uses digital recording on to magnetic tape to store digital information. Modern magnetic tape is most commonly packaged in cartridges and cassettes. The device that performs actual writing or reading of data is a tape drive...

 brand. This was reinforced in 1999 when Iomega

Iomega

Iomega is an American producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Established in the 1980s, Iomega has sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks. On April 8, 2008, EMC Corporation announced its plans to acquire Iomega for a consideration of US $213M...

 sold their Ditto

Ditto drive

The Ditto Drive series was a proprietary magnetic tape data storage system released by Iomega during the 1990s. It was marketed as a backup device for personal computers....

 brand to Tecmar. At this time, Tecmar offered DAT

Digital Data Storage

Digital Data Storage is a format for storing computer data on a Digital Audio Tape .DDS uses tape with a width of 3.8mm, with the exception of the latest formats, DAT 160 and DAT 320, which are 8mm wide...

, QIC

Quarter Inch Cartridge

Quarter inch cartridge tape is a magnetic tape data storage format introduced by 3M in 1972, with derivatives still in use as of 2009. QIC comes in a rugged enclosed package of aluminum and plastic that holds two tape reels driven by a single belt in direct contact with the tape. The tape was...

, Travan

Travan

Travan is an 8 mm magnetic tape cartridge design developed by the 3M company, used for the storage of data in computer backups and mass storage. Over time, subsequent versions of Travan cartridges and drives have been developed that provide greater data capacity, while retaining the standard 8 mm...

 and Ditto magnetic tape technologies. In 2000, Overland Data saw this and acquired Tecmar in an effort to complement its line of higher end tape products. This did not last long.

As of 2007, Tecmar is a dormant corporation owned by Overland and Scientific Solutions is still an active corporation.