Apollo Computer

Apollo Computer Inc.
Company type	Private
Industry	Computer hardware, Software
Founded	1 January 1980; 46 years ago in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, United States
Founder	William Poduska and partners
Defunct	1989
Fate	Acquired by Hewlett-Packard
Headquarters	Chelmsford, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	William Poduska (Founder), Thomas Vanderslice (CEO from 1984), Charlie Spector (COO)
Products	Apollo/Domain workstations, Domain/OS operating system, DSEE revision control system
Parent	Hewlett-Packard (from 1989)

Apollo Computer Inc. was a U.S.-based technology firm located in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, established in 1980 by William Poduska, who also co-founded Prime Computer, along with several partners. Throughout the 1980s, Apollo engineered and manufactured Apollo/Domain workstations and stood as one of the earliest providers of graphical workstations, competing with companies like Symbolics and Sun Microsystems. The enterprise was notable for creating much of its own hardware and software components.

In 1989, Hewlett-Packard acquired Apollo for $476 million, with the company’s activities gradually ceasing between 1990 and 1997. The "HP Apollo" designation was later revived in 2014 within HP’s portfolio dedicated to high-performance computing.

History

Apollo was founded two years prior to competitor Sun Microsystems, with a founding team including Poduska (the company’s originator), Dave Nelson, Mike Greata, Charlie Spector (COO), Bob Antonuccio, Gerry Stanley, and Dave Lubrano. Early technical leadership consisted of Mike Sporer, Bernie Stumpf, Russ Barbour, Paul Leach, and Andy Marcuvitz.

The company broke ground in the independent workstation sector with its 1981 DN100 model powered by the Motorola 68000 CPU. Its proprietary operating system Aegis (subsequently renamed Domain/OS) featured sophisticated networking capabilities such as demand paging over networks and network transparency, which minimized system administration efforts.

Between 1980 and 1987, Apollo dominated the network workstation market, achieving quarterly sales exceeding $100 million by late 1986. By the end of that year, Apollo commanded double the global market share in engineering workstations compared to Sun Microsystems. In 1987, it ranked third behind Digital Equipment Corporation and Sun but outpaced Hewlett-Packard and IBM. Prominent customers included Mentor Graphics, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Chicago Research and Trading, and Boeing.

Following HP’s acquisition in 1989, Apollo’s technology was integrated into HP’s HP 9000 workstation series, with the Apollo brand briefly maintained as "HP Apollo 9000." Additionally, Apollo developed the revision control system DSEE (Domain Software Engineering Environment), which later influenced IBM's ClearCase DevOps tool.

The development of Apollo’s Aegis OS stemmed from expensive Unix licensing fees and incorporated ideas from Multics, including shell scripting and object-oriented principles. Its architecture utilized a dual-processor setup that enabled effective virtual memory management via automatic handling of page faults.

Apollo’s exclusive token ring networking supported direct memory access page faults across networked disk drives but did not initially interoperate with standard Ethernet or TCP/IP protocols. Eventually, the company incorporated support for these prevalent standards while preserving its own Domain networking system.

Transitioning away from proprietary bus designs, Apollo adopted IBM’s AT-bus architecture and embraced RISC processors through its PRISM product line. Nevertheless, the proliferation of IBM PC compatibles exerted pressure on the workstation market during the late 1980s.

Thomas Vanderslice assumed the CEO role in 1984; founder Poduska exited in 1985 to establish Stellar. The company encountered severe financial setbacks in 1987 due to unauthorized currency trading and suffered from reduced product demand in 1988.

After HP purchased Apollo for $476 million in 1989, support for Apollo products was initially inconsistent but reorganized by late 1992 when around 100,000 users remained active. HP initiated trade-in programs aimed at Apollo users to retain market position against rivals like Sun Microsystems.

Between 1990 and 1997, Apollo operations were progressively discontinued as HP redirected focus away from Domain/OS workstations amid shifting industry trends favoring open platforms such as Unix and the X Window System.

Models

*Apollo Computer product lineup*
System Category	Model Number	Processor	Clock Speed (MHz)	Display Type	Code Name
SAU1	DN416	Dual 68000 CPUs	8	Portrait Green & White
SAU1	DN100	Dual 68000 CPUs	8	Portrait Black & White
SAU1	DN600	Dual 68000 CPUs	8	Color Display
SAU2	DN300	68010 CPU	8	Landscape Black & White	Swallow
SAU2	DN330	68020 CPU	12	Landscape Black & White	Swallow
SAU3	DSP90	68020 CPU	12	No Display	Sparrow
SAU4	DN460	Custom 2900 bit-slice processor	Unknown	Black & White Display	Tern
SAU5	DN570	68020 CPU	16	Ocelot Graphics Single Card, 8-plane
SAU5	DN590	68020 CPU	20	Aurora Graphics
SAU6	DN590T	68020 CPU	20	Color Display
SAU7	DN3500	68030 CPU	25	Black & White / Color Display	Cougar II
SAU7	DN4500	68030 CPU	33	Black & White / Color Display
SAU8	DN3000	68020 CPU	12	Black & White / Color Display
SAU9	DN2500	68030 CPU	20	Black & White / Color Display	Frodo
SAU10	DN10000	PRISM processor	18	Black & White / Color Display	AT
SAU11	9000/425S	68040 CPU	25	—	Trailways
SAU11	9000/433S	68040 CPU	33	—
SAU12	9000/400S	68030 CPU	50	—
SAU14	DN5500	68040 CPU	25	Black & White / Color Display	Leopard

References

This entry incorporates content from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing under the terms of the GFDL.

External links

History

Models

See also

References

External links