MASSCOMP

{{Short description|Former computer manufacturer from the United States}}

{{More citations needed|date=December 2009}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}

Image:Masscomp4.JPG

The Massachusetts Computer Corporation (MASSCOMP) was a computer manufacturer based in Westford, Massachusetts. Originally conceived by C. Forbes Dewey of MIT and inventor Chester Schuler, it was founded formally in 1981.{{Cite web|url=http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/masscomp|title=MASSCOMP - RICM|website=RICM|access-date=2019-05-09}} Its target market was real-time computing, with a focus on high-speed data acquisition. Its major innovation was that it created the first widely available computer product which was able to sample analog signals at one million samples per second and store the resulting data to disk continuously. Given the technology available at the time—Motorola 68000 series CPUs of only a few megahertz in speed and slow disk drives—this product represented quite a technological achievement.

The MASSCOMP MC-500 is a 68000-based microcomputer running a real-time variant of the Unix operating system.{{cite news | url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1983-10/1983_10_BYTE_08-10_UNIX#page/n133/mode/2up | title=The Unix Tutorial / Part 3: Unix in the Microcomputer Marketplace | work=BYTE | date=October 1983 | accessdate=30 January 2015 | author=Fiedler, Ryan | pages=132}} For a small company, MASSCOMP incorporated a number of ambitious and innovative projects in addition to Real-Time Unix, including their own C and Fortran compiler, a block diagram language known as "Laboratory Workbench" that allowed visual programming of real time systems to connect real-time analog inputs and outputs to signal processing operations and interactive virtual instruments for data display, and their own high level graphics subsystem.

MASSCOMP grew to about $65 million in sales per year and ultimately purchased Concurrent Computer Corporation (a spinoff company that was part public but majority-owned by Perkin-Elmer) in 1988Concurrent Computer Corporation, 2009. Concurrent History. {{cite web |url=http://www.ccur.com/company_history.aspx |title=Concurrent History - Concurrent Computer Corporation |accessdate=2011-04-13 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110318042824/http://ccur.com/company_history.aspx |archivedate=18 March 2011}} - accessed on 2 November 2010{{Cite web |title=History of The Perkin-Elmer Corporation – FundingUniverse |url=http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/the-perkin-elmer-corporation-history/ |access-date=2022-12-25 |website=www.fundinguniverse.com}} in a "junk bond deal" and assumed the Concurrent name, with aim of becoming the number one vendor in the real-time computing market. The deal cost Masscomp $240 million.[https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/concurrent-computer-corporation "Concurrent Computer Corporation"], Encyclopedia.com, accessed 15 October 2019 Perkin-Elmer sold this company as part of restructuring of their business due to low profits in the computer market.