History in the Dark 
Compaq was at the top of the computer industry for many years. They rocketed to success in the 1980’s, offering both portable and desktop PC’s. But as time went on they made some critical mistakes, and the most major of which was the purchase of another large computer manufacturer. This merger spiraled out of control, and have Compaq no time to reorient themselves before the dot com bubble burst in the early 2000’s.
✈️Further Reading✈️
https://inspireip.com/compaq-failure-what-happened-to-compaq/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq
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#compaq #computer #pc #laptop #internet #truestory #documentary #corporate #90s
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About The Author
They released a model of dot matrix printer that was freestanding that was the loudest consumer printer ever made. When I was younger I worked in a computer shop and we would repurpose a lot of old stuff and one of those came in and I would play a trick on the owner and schedule a print task for after I left for the day and it was up against the wall and he said that it would make everything shake and it was loud
I had a Compaq merger era laptop. It was okay 😂
It had the same specs as its HP Pavilion counterpart but was actually cheaper. Lol
My first laptop was a Compaq
My first AWESOME PC was a Compaq… from Fry’s Electronics! God I miss both… 😢
20:40 missed opportunity for the Sun Microsystems logo.
kinda looked like Johnathan cleese😅 in the commercials.😊
My parental units worked at Compaq from nearly the start. Rod was a great guy and it was an amazing company. Eckhard Pfeiffer destroyed the company. The Presarios were called the "PrettySorrys" inside the company. Shipped with the worst modems on the planet, while markets as a home PC for getting on the internet. Of course the Portal was my first computer.
Is that John Delancey in the demo mode animation?? The resolution is very low, but it looks like it might be Q.
When I worked for Computer city in Troy Michigan for five years, I sold more compact than any other computer. It was the most popular computer in the world and now it’s a joke and a memory. That young people don’t even know exist. Hilarious I love it.❤
In my country (argentina) you can still buy a Compaq laptop, but there really some shitty pcs that uses the name and they made Atari , Compac and commodore laptops, I belive they bougth the licensing. Those laptops used to be offered in great electronics chains.
Im form Argentina.
My first laptop was a compaq. I had a docking station and a whole 2 gigs of hard drive!
$3,000 in '83 money is $9,500 in today's money. 😂
Watching all this merger nonsense and comparing it to what Safeway & Fry's are trying to do… Just… Scary
I think I had one of their netbooks in the 2010s.
Maybe it's just because I was around it all the time during my childhood, but hearing DEC said as "D E C" instead of said like "Deck" really bothers me.
❤
Your vintage computer/software videos are probably my favourite – also stupid trains 😂lol
i’m going to sound so young here but i had a compaq laptop as a preteen in the early 2010’s! many dress up and horse games were played on it lol
Ohhhh god I love the aesthetics of 1960s computers 🥹
Loving the stories about failed mega companies. Always great stuff
lol portable computer that probably weighed 50 pounds. Great video!
Mine was a Presario 4712. I died in a year. I loved it though because of the great JBL speakers it came with.
Compaq was super relevant when I got into computers in the early 90’s. Hadn’t thought about them in awhile so thanks!
We had a Compaq when I was in high school. And at the time (mid to late 90's) they were considered cheap ass low end computers, at best. Basically the same reputation that Dell now has. My first PC was a Compaq too, which was… not really upgradable as I recall. The monitor lasted me a good long while though.
At timestamp 18:18
Cyrex…..HAHAHAHAHA!
Please for the love of God can you put chapter markers 🤦🏿♂️
My first “corporate job” was Compaq. It was a really good company with great benefits. Unheard of cheap health insurance and 6% matching 401k. Pretty good vacation earning. This was 1990. Then 1993 happened. Started bean counting. Started buying company after company… 1987 to then was awesome. Astroworld rented out for us. Eckhard was a canoe…
Gateway Computers. The talk of the premium PC town. That's otta be an interesting one.. .
Video quality is really poor
They built so many of the servers that I installed. Excellent company to do business with BEFORE the HP merger.
The first computer we had was a Compaq Presario originally with Windows 95 and later upgraded to Windows 98. The thing was dead slow and froze up all the time. Around 2001 we got a HP Tower which we used until 2007 or so running Windows 98 the whole time mostly for CD-ROM games and programs but we also use dial-up internet on the HP
I love that Q is doing the intro tour for Compaq. That brings back the day.
I had an ipaq in 2002ish. It wasnt a touchscreen, it needed a stylus (or a fingernail and hard press).
It also didnt have wifi.
It was basically a color screen, microsoft pocketpc, more advanced palm pilot.
"What's an AOL?" OMG…. We're getting to the point where that's going to be a question kids ask. First my parents. Soon my kids…
digital equipment corporation was pronounced “deck” not “d e c”. so DECMate was the “deck mate” etc. but we never pronounced it as an abbreviation
7:46 We called them "luggables" in the day.
My very first PC that I bought for myself was a Compaq presario in 1999 from CompUsa with windows 98se. I miss that old thing.
God bless and save you
Oh Compaq. I remember my IT days supporting ProLiant servers as well as doing some side work supporting Presarios. Current have a P4-based Presarios (given to me a few years back) that I'm getting back up and running for an early 2000s era gaming system.
$3k for Compaq in 1982? Wow. I'm currently building myself a new gaming rig; water cooled i9-14900k, 4080Super graphics, 128 Gb RAM, and 12 Tb of M.2 storage for nearly the same price.. How far we've come