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It was bought for $345 million in 1979 and sold for $71 million in 1985.
Moral: Circumstances change quickly in the chip industry
Fable: Fate
There was once a company which had 85% of the worldwide DRAM market.
By David Manners Posted on 22nd August 2024 | Modified on 29th June 2024
I’ve never been convinced they had 85% of the DRAM market back then. There were lots of companies producing these devices, often as custom contracts for the big users such as IBM, DEC, DG and HP.
Well it had the best DRAM designers in the world Mike – Paul Schroeder, Ward Parkinson, Doug Pitman – so it’s not impossible. In those days the best DRAM at each generation tended to sweep the board.
I think you underestimate the many IBM engineers. They made most of the DRAM inventions at that time, and had significant production of the 64k devices two years ahead of Mostek or Intel.
Mostek
That’s right Duncan, Mostek it was.