Realistic Controls

Realistic Controls Corporation

Company type	Private
Industry	Computer hardware
Founded	1974
Founder	Robert Staib
Defunct	1983
Fate	Shutdown due to manufacturing setbacks and insufficient financial resources
Successor	Nylac Computer Corporation, Archives, Inc.
Headquarters	Davenport, Iowa , United States
Area served	United States
Key people	Robert Staib (founder), Gary Martin (owner of Nylac Computer Corporation), Patricia "Tish" Hewett (founder of Archives, Inc.)
Products	Z/100 series microcomputers, REX microcomputer, MPPS 100 single-board computer, Nylac computer, Archive I, Archive II, Archive III
Number of employees	40 (1983)

Realistic Controls Corporation (NCC), which later became known as Nylac Computer Corporation and subsequently Archives, Inc., was a United States-based computer firm headquartered in Davenport, Iowa, established in 1974.

Realistic Controls Corporation (1974–1979)

Robert Staib founded Realistic Controls Corporation in approximately 1974 in Davenport, Iowa. By 1976, the company had set up its main office at 404 W. 35th Street, Davenport, where it specialized in the creation, production, and installation of computerized utility meters and tailored control systems for industrial clients. The firm also maintained a brief operational presence in Cleveland, Ohio.

By 1977, RCC's clientele featured notable companies such as John Deere, Caterpillar Inc., an electric utility provider from California, and the government of Iowa. That year marked the introduction of their initial public computer product line, the Z/100 series—microcomputers powered by the Intel 8080 processor and designed primarily for Fortran IV users.

During the summer of 1977, RCC ventured into the consumer home computer market with a system planned for release by the holiday season. This initiative produced the REX, a microcomputer based on the Z80 CPU, equipped with 24 KB of RAM expandable up to 64 KB, an integrated keyboard, composite and RF video output supporting both color and monochrome displays, dual 5.25-inch floppy disk drives, and a 15-amp power supply unit. Its motherboard incorporated an S-100 bus architecture featuring five expansion slots. In 1978, RCC introduced the MPPS 100, a single-board computer utilizing the RCA 1802 processor.

Nylac Computer Corporation (1979–1980)

In approximately May 1979, ownership of Realistic Controls transferred to Gary Martin, who rebranded it as Nylac Computer Corporation. Under this name, they launched the Nylac computer—a Z80-driven system running at 4 MHz with an 8257/8275 memory-mapped video controller located at address 0×F800 and an 8251 serial input/output controller. The machine featured six S-100 bus slots, one dedicated to a controller card for a 5.25-inch floppy drive.

This setup included a 13-inch CRT monitor, a linear power supply unit, and two 5.25-inch floppy drives (later upgraded to dual-headed drives). Near the end of its production cycle, Nylac incorporated a 5-megabyte hard disk drive in a 5.25-inch form factor that replaced one of the floppy drives. The operating system used was CP/M.

Archives, Inc. (1980–1983)

Archives, Inc., established in 1978 by Patricia "Tish" Hewett (spouse of former John Deere chairman William Alexander Hewitt), acquired Nylac along with its facilities at 404 W. 35th Street in 1980. Archives debuted its first computer model—the Archive I—in April of that year. While capable of running various software applications including games, it was mainly promoted as a word processing machine featuring a Z80 CPU and 64 KB of RAM.

Following models included the Archives II released in April 1981 and Archives III launched in September of the same year. Although there were intentions to introduce an Archive IV by late 1983, Archives announced its shutdown in March 1983 due to manufacturing setbacks and insufficient financial resources. At the time of closure, the company employed approximately 40 people and had experienced stable sales before ceasing operations.