System Industries

System Industries, Inc.,[1][2][3] was an American computer hardware company active from 1968 to 1993. It produced printers and disk drives for minicomputers.[4]

History

The firm was founded in 1968[1] by Ed Zschau[4] with backing from Brentwood Associates, a private equity firm.[5] Corporate earnings were followed by The New York Times.[6][7] Their focus was to be a third-party provider of DEC-compatible equipment, especially for printers and disk drives (and their controllers).[8]

In 1992 they acquired Emulex's disk drive business.[9] By 1993 System Industries was dealing with a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[10] That same year they introduced an eraseable optical disc product and an 8mm magnetic tape storage devices.[11]

System Industries was one of 19 manufacturers of disk drive products that were sued in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Digital Equipment Corporation for alleged patent violations.[12] Individual settlements were reached.[13]

Silonics

System Industries had a subsidiary named Silonics,[14][15] which made ink-jet printers.[16][17] By 1980,[14] System Industries found it more profitable to focus on its disk business.[18]

SIMACS (SImultaneous Machine ACceSs)

System Industries developed a capability for having more than one DEC CPU, but not at the same time, have write access to a shared disk. They implemented an enhancement called SIMACS (SImultaneous Machine ACceSs),[19][20] which allowed their special disk controller to set a semaphore flag for disk access, allowing multiple WRITES to the same files; the disk is shared by multiple DEC systems. SIMACS existed on VAX and PDP-11 RSTS systems.

Advertising

It's "80 Mbytes of storage for under $12K!" ad was considered noteworthy by Computerworld, which in 2007, 2012 and 2017 headlined "... And other ad favorites," "... And other IT ad favorites," and "10 fun tech ads through the years."[21][22][23] A CIO magazine "looking-back" item also noted the aforementioned ad headline.

References
  1. Leonard Sloane (February 18, 1982). "System Industries Names New Chief". The New York Times.
  2. Dean Takahashi (February 15, 1994). "MTI Technology to Sell Stock to Public". The Los Angeles Times.
  3. "Company Reports ** SYSTEM INDUSTRIES INC (O)". The New York Times. April 26, 1983.
  4. "New System Industries Chief". The New York Times. February 18, 1987.
  5. Zschau, "rhymes with how" Daniel F. Cuff; Lawrence M. Fisher (January 21, 1987). "A Son Of Silicon Valley Back From Capitol Hill". The New York Times.
  6. "SYSTEM INDUSTRIES INC reports earnings for Qtr to July 4". The New York Times. July 22, 1982.
  7. "System Industries reports earnings for Qtr to April 22". The New York Times. May 23, 1989.
  8. Andrew Pollack (February 27, 1983). "The Birth of Silicon Statesmanship". The New York Times. System Industries, a computer data storage equipment manufacturer
  9. Dean Takahashi (June 23, 1992). "Emulex to Sell Competitor Its Storage Products Line : Electronics: A Milpitas firm will buy the line, which is compatible with Digital computers". The Los Angeles Times.
  10. John O'Dell (October 18, 1993). "MTI to Buy Troubled Data Storage Maker : Technology: Deal for Anaheim firm brings with it a $100-million supply subcontract from Boeing". The Los Angeles Times.
  11. "System Industries Has Optical Jukebox, 8mm Tape System For DEC's DSSI". March 5, 1992.
  12. Dean Takahashi (October 9, 1991). "Emulex Corp. Files Countersuit Against Digital : Competition: The Costa Mesadisk drive maker claims that Massachusetts rival sued it only as an attempt to monopolize the computer storage market". The Los Angeles Times.
  13. "Digital Takes On Emulex Alleging Infringement". The Los Angeles Times. August 14, 1991.
  14. "Company News". The New York Times. August 3, 1979. Tally .. to purchase .. Silonics Inc. owned by System Industries
  15. "Capital Formation: Hearings". 1978. p. 42. Silonics .. subsidiary of System Industries
  16. Roger Bourke White. "Systems Industries".
  17. "US6412925B1 - Ink jet apparatus".
  18. Victor F. Zonana (June 29, 1986). "Zschau as a Manager Gets Mixed Reviews". The Los Angeles Times.
  19. R. Wand; M. Kesteven; P. Rayner (February 24, 1984). "Computing Requirements for AT Software Development" (PDF).
  20. Prem Joshi; Jacques Delacroix (September 1984). "New Flexibility For Multiple VAX/VMS". HARDCOPY. pp. 64–68.
  21. "80 Mbytes of storage for under $12K! And other ad favorites". Computerworld. June 14, 2007.
  22. "'80 Mbytes of storage for under $12K!' and other IT ad favorites". Computerworld. October 22, 2012. prices were valid only for resellers buying at least 40
  23. "10 fun tech ads through the years". Computerworld. April 7, 2017.
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