MASSCOMP

Massachusetts Computer Corporation

Company type	Private
Industry	Computer hardware, Real-time computing
Founded	1981
Founder	C. Forbes Dewey, Chester Schuler
Defunct	1995
Fate	Acquired Concurrent Computer Corporation and rebranded as Concurrent
Headquarters	Westford , United States
Key people	C. Forbes Dewey, Chester Schuler
Products	MASSCOMP MC-500, real-time Unix systems, proprietary C and Fortran compilers, Laboratory Workbench visual programming environment, high-level graphics framework
Parent	Perkin-Elmer (after acquisition)

The Massachusetts Computer Corporation (MASSCOMP) was a computer manufacturer located in Westford, Massachusetts. Established in 1981 by C. Forbes Dewey of MIT and inventor Chester Schuler, the company specialized in the real-time computing sector with an emphasis on rapid data acquisition. Their pioneering achievement was creating the first broadly accessible computer capable of capturing analog signals at a rate of one million samples per second while continuously writing data to disk—remarkable given the period's constraints of Motorola 68000 CPU performance and slow disk storage technology.

The MASSCOMP MC-500, which utilized the 68000 microprocessor, operated on a real-time version of the Unix operating system. Although MASSCOMP was relatively small, it undertook several advanced initiatives alongside Real-Time Unix, such as developing proprietary C and Fortran compilers, designing a visual programming environment named "Laboratory Workbench" for real-time system engineering, and implementing a sophisticated high-level graphics framework.

At its peak, MASSCOMP achieved roughly $65 million in yearly revenue and acquired Concurrent Computer Corporation, a Perkin-Elmer majority-owned spinoff, in 1988 through a $240 million junk bond transaction. Following this acquisition, MASSCOMP rebranded itself under the Concurrent name with the goal of dominating the real-time computing industry. This strategic move was part of Perkin-Elmer's effort to restructure due to underperformance in its computer division.

External links

• A MASSCOMP system is preserved at the Rhode Island Computer Museum