Connectix
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Fate | Sold Virtual Game Station to Sony, sold Virtual PC to Microsoft, discontinued other products |
|---|---|
| Successor | Merged with Microsoft |
| Founded | October 1988 |
| Defunct | August 2003 |
| Location | |
| Industry | computer software and hardware |
| Products | Virtual MODE32 MAXIMA RAM Doubler Speed Doubler Quickcam Virtual Game Station Virtual PC Virtual Server |
| Key people | Jon Garber Bonnie Fought Roy McDonald Eric Traut |
Connectix Corporation was a software and hardware company, noted for having released innovative products that were either made obsolete as Apple Computer incorporated the ideas into system software, or were sold to other companies once they become popular. It was formed in October 1988 by Jon Garber; dominant board members were Garber, Bonnie Fought (the two were later married), and close friend Roy McDonald. McDonald was still Chief Executive Officer and president when Connectix finally closed in August 2003.
Primary products included:
- Virtual, its original flagship product, which introduced virtual memory to the Macintosh OS years before Apple introduced System 7 (Virtual also ran on a motley assortment of accelerator cards for the original Mac / Mac Plus / Mac SE line, which were not supported under Apple's virtual memory implementation);
- MODE32 software, which allowed 32-bit addressing on "32-bit-dirty" Macintosh systems (later bought by Apple and distributed for free, at least in part to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by customers who demanded to know why their 32-bit 68020 microprocessors could not access more than 8 megabytes of RAM);
- MAXIMA, a RAM disk utility, better than the one that later came with the Mac OS as it saved its contents before and after reboots and also allowed booting from the RAM disk;
- RAM Doubler, the first product to combine compression with virtual memory, a top selling Mac utility for many years (eventually made obsolete as Apple improved their own virtual memory and RAM prices dropped); [There was also a RAM Doubler for Windows 3.1 which increased system resources - using a compression technique - therefore allowing more applications to run]
- Speed Doubler, which combined an enhanced disk cache, better Finder copy utility, and a dynamically recompiling 68K-to-PowerPC emulator, which was faster than the both the interpretive emulator that shipped in the original PowerPCs and than the dynamically recompiling emulator that Apple shipped in later machines (made obsolete as 68K applications and OS code went away);
- Quickcam webcams (sold to Logitech) - originally the sole design of Jon Garber, he wanted to call it the 'Mac-camera', but was vetoed by Marketing who saw the possibility of it one day becoming a cross-platform product. Indeed, it was to become the first Connectix Windows product 14 months later, the first of many (RAM Doubler for Windows 3.1 being the next to take the leap; Kibitzer's note: the Mac QuickCam shipped in August 1994, RAM Doubler for Windows in April 1995, QuickCam for Windows in October 1995);
- Virtual Game Station, PlayStation emulation software (sold to Sony, who bought it only after their lawsuit to stop it failed, and then dropped the product immediately)
- Virtual PC and Virtual server emulation software of x86-based personal computers for the Macintosh and Windows (sold to Microsoft).
With the sale of Virtual PC development and support, staff were transferred to Microsoft, including Chief Technical Officer Eric Traut, but not including any of the Connectix board members or Technical Support. Its Macintosh products, including DoubleTalk, CopyAgent and RAM Doubler, were discontinued.
