title: Bengal Sultanate

text: The architecture of the Bengal Sultanate has influenced modern architecture in Bangladesh. The sultanate era inspired the Baitur Rauf Mosque, which won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016.


title: Telmisartan

text: Telmisartan, sold under the brand name Micardis among others, is a medication used to treat high blood pressure, heart failure, and diabetic kidney disease. It is a reasonable initial treatment for high blood pressure. It is taken by mouth. Versions are available as the combination telmisartan/hydrochlorothiazide, telmisartan/cilnidipine and telmisartan/amlodipine.


title: Telmisartan

text: Common side effects include upper respiratory tract infections, diarrhea, and back pain. Serious side effects may include kidney problems, low blood pressure, and angioedema. Use in pregnancy may harm the baby and use when breastfeeding is not recommended. It is an angiotensin II receptor antagonist and works by blocking the effects of angiotensin II.


title: Telmisartan

text: Telmisartan was patented in 1991 and came into medical use in 1999. It is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 248th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 1million prescriptions.


title: Telmisartan

text: Telmisartan is used to treat high blood pressure, heart failure, and diabetic kidney disease. It is a reasonable initial treatment for high blood pressure.


title: Telmisartan

text: Telmisartan is contraindicated during pregnancy. Like other drugs affecting the renin–angiotensin system (RAS), telmisartan can cause birth defects, stillbirths, and neonatal deaths. It is not known whether the drug passes into the breast milk. Also it is contraindicated in bilateral renal artery stenosis in which it can cause kidney failure.


title: Telmisartan

text: Side effects are similar to other angiotensin II receptor antagonists and include tachycardia and bradycardia (fast or slow heartbeat), hypotension (low blood pressure) and edema (swelling of arms, legs, lips, tongue, or throat, the latter leading to breathing problems). Allergic reactions may also occur.


title: Telmisartan

text: Due to its mechanism of action, telmisartan increases blood potassium levels. Combination with potassium preparations or potassium-sparing diuretics could cause hyperkalaemia (excessive potassium levels). Combination with NSAIDs, especially in patients with impaired kidney function, has a risk of causing (usually reversible) kidney failure.


title: Telmisartan

text: Telmisartan is an angiotensin II receptor blocker that shows high affinity for the angiotensin II receptor type 1 (AT), with a binding affinity 3000 times greater for AT than AT.


title: Telmisartan

text: In addition to blocking the renin–angiotensin system, telmisartan acts as a selective modulator of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR-γ), a central regulator of insulin and glucose metabolism. It is believed that telmisartan's dual mode of action may provide protective benefits against the vascular and renal damage caused by diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD).


title: Telmisartan

text: Telmisartan's activity at the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor delta (PPAR-δ) receptor has prompted speculation around its potential as a sport doping agent as an alternative to GW 501516. Telmisartan activates PPAR-δ receptors in several tissues.


title: Telmisartan

text: The substance is quickly but to varying degrees absorbed from the gut. The average bioavailability is about 50% (42–100%). Food intake has no clinically relevant influence on the kinetics of telmisartan. Plasma protein binding is over 99.5%, mainly to albumin and alpha-1-acid glycoprotein. It has the longest half-life of any angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB) (24 hours) and the largest volume of distribution among ARBs (500 liters). Less than 3% of telmisartan is inactivated by glucuronidation in the liver, and over 97% is eliminated in unchanged form via bile and faeces.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobile network operator to obtain bulk access to network services at wholesale rates, then sets retail prices independently. An MVNO may use its own customer service, billing support systems, marketing, and sales personnel, or it could employ the services of a mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE).


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: MVNO agreements with network operators date back to the 1990s, when the European telecom market saw market liberalization, new regulatory frameworks, better 2G network technology, and a subsequent jump in wireless subscriber numbers. Though the new 2G networks more efficiently managed the limited frequency bands allocated to wireless service, new mobile entrants were still limited by their ability to access frequency bands in a restricted spectrum.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: With European markets newly open to competition and new technology enabling better service and cheaper handsets, there was a massive surge in demand for cellular phones. In the midst of this swell, Sense Communications fought for access to mobile network operator (MNO) spectrum in Scandinavia in 1997. Sense was able to establish an MVNO agreement with Sonera in Finland, but it failed to persuade MNOs in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Sense then appealed to EU regulators, citing provisions that required certain MNOs to allow new entrants interconnection. While Sense's claim was denied, in November 1999, the company signed a service provider agreement with Telia/Telenor Mobile for GSM network capacity access, allowing Sense to offer services to its own customers in Sweden and Norway.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: Despite Sense's initial failure, the regulator in Denmark saw the promise in the MVNO model as a cost-effective route for telecom companies to enter the market and in May 2000, legislation passed that required network operators with significant market power to open up access to their infrastructure. By August of that same year, the MNO SONOFON had solidified the first viable MVNO agreement with Tele2. This agreement provided Tele2 with access to SONOFON's network for both mobile and roaming services, the latter of which had been requested by (and denied to) Sense Communications. With the new regulations in place, MVNOs in Scandinavia eventually grew to a market share of above 10%.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: By 2008, US wireless subscribers had a choice between around 40 MVNOs. According to the FCC, approximately 7% of all U.S. mobile subscribers were served by resellers, including MVNOs, and analysts found that the 15.1 million wireless subscribers served by resellers by the end of 2006 had increased by 1.6 million over the previous year.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: MVNOs are distinguished by their commitment to owning and managing the operational components of the MVNO business model, consisting of:


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: Because MVNOs are effectively defined by their lack of spectrum licenses, an MVNO necessarily will need to have agreements in place to access the network of at least one MNO. The type of MVNO is determined by how "thick" or "thin" a technological layer an MVNO adds over its access to its host MNO's network.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: Sometimes referred to as a "Skinny MVNO", as the reseller almost totally relies on the MNO's facilities. They do not own any network elements, but may own and operate their own customer care, marketing, and sales operations.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: Sometimes referred to as a "Light MVNO". The service provider operates its own customer support, marketing, sales and distribution operations, and has the ability to set its tariffs independently from the retail prices set by the MNO.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: Sometimes referred to as a "Thick MVNO". The MVNO manages a more complete technical implementation with its own infrastructure which allows the MVNO more control over its offerings. These MVNOs have a heavier focus on branding, customer-ownership, and differentiation through added services like data and SIM applications.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: These MVNOs have a network implementation operating essentially the same technology as a mobile network operator. Full MVNOs only lack their own radio networks.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: As of June 2014, 943 MVNOs and 255 MNO sub-brands were active worldwide. This represents a total of almost 1,200 mobile service providers worldwide hosted by MNOs, up from 1,036 in 2012,


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: According to GSMA Intelligence, between June 2010 and June 2015, the number of MVNOs worldwide increased by 70 percent, reaching 1,017 in June 2015.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: As of December 2018, there were 1,300 active MVNOs operating in 79 countries, representing more than 220 million mobile connections--approximately 2.46% of the total 8.9 billion mobile connections in the world. The eight countries with the largest number of active MVNOs in 2018 were: the US with 139 MVNOs (4.7% market share), Germany with 135 (19.5% market share), Japan 83 (10.6%), UK 77 (15.9%), Australia 66 (13.1%), Spain 63 (11.5%), France 53 (11.2%) and Denmark 49 (34.6%).


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: In addition to traditional cellular voice and messaging services, in 2014, 120 MVNOs also were offering mobile broadband services. In Africa, Uganda has registered three MVNOs so far, some having their own network infrastructure within major cities, but acting as an MVNO out of these cities.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: In 2015, one of the "big five" banks in South Africa, FNB, created an MVNO named FNB Connect providing voice, SMS and data services. As of 31 December 2019, FNB Connect had around 670,000 subscribers. The service makes use of Cell C network infrastructure. The move came not necessarily to compete in the telecommunications market, but to offer a greater value to customers of the banking division. There have been several banks in South Africa making this move, like Standard Bank's SB Mobile established in 2019.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: MVNOs target both the consumer and enterprise markets. The majority of MVNOs are consumer-focused and most have a focus on price as their selling point; on average, customers of major carriers spend about 3.4 times as much on their service as MVNO customers.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: Some MVNOs have a presence in multiple countries, either as subsidiaries, joint ventures, or through brand licensing agreements with local partners. i.e. Lycamobile 23 countries, Virgin Mobile 14 countries, Lebara 10 countries, CMLink five countries, Tesco Mobile four countries, Line Mobile three countries, Aldi Talk six countries, Kogan.com Mobile two countries, L-Mobi Mobile two countries.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: Japan has about 80 MVNO brands, and the market share of MVNOs is 12.2% in 2019. The total number of contractors is 22.3 million.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: There are 139 MVNO brands in the US, which are estimated to sell service to about 7 out of every 100 US wireless subscribers, representing 23 million customers in all. US MVNOs resell service offered by the three national network carriers: AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The number of MVNO customers doubled between 2009 and 2012 because the FCC set rules easing the ability for customers to switch networks.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: The three US national carriers have partial or full ownership of several large MVNO brands, such as Cricket Wireless (AT&T), Visible (Verizon), and Metro by T-Mobile (T-Mobile)


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: The UK had 77 active MVNOs as of December 2018. The MVNOs combined market share was 15.9% of the total UK mobile market, representing 15.3 million connections; that is, 23 out of every 100 subscribers having their mobile phone service with an MVNO.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: Ireland has 7 active MVNO brands as of February 2021, and the market share of MVNOs in 2021 was 13.0%.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: In 2003, the European Commission issued a recommendation to national telecom regulators to examine the competitiveness of the market for wholesale access and call origination on public mobile telephone networks. The study resulted in new regulations from regulators in several countries, including Ireland and France forcing operators to open up their networks to MVNOs.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: Jordan's top watchdog issued its first MVNO regulations in 2008, facilitating the creation of the first MVNO in the Arab world in 2010.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: In Brazil, MVNOs are regulated by Anatel, the Brazilian Agency of Telecommunications, in November 2010. As of September 2014 the combined market share of all Brazilian MVNOs was just 0.04%.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: In Thailand, five MVNOs were given a Type II license to operate on the 2100 MHz 3G network of state telecom service TOT Public Company Limited (TOT) in 2009. As of January 2017, two of the original five MVNOs are still in service. As of December 2018, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) had issued 58 MVNO licenses in Thailand, a total of nine have launched, four remain active.


title: Mobile virtual network operator

text: In India, the Telecom Department under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, accepted a recommendation from the national telecom regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, to permit VNOs in the country, and announced the grant of a unified license for Virtual Network Operators on 31 May 2016. VNOs have formed an association to represent current regulatory issues impacting their MVNO business viability.


title: Love Me Do

text: "Love Me Do" is the official debut single by the English rock band the Beatles, backed by "P.S. I Love You". When the single was originally released in the United Kingdom on 5 October 1962, it peaked at number 17. It was released in the United States in 1964, where it became a number one hit. Re-released in 1982 as part of EMI’s Beatles 20th anniversary, it re-entered the UK charts and peaked at number 4.


title: Love Me Do

text: The song was written several years before it was recorded, and prior to the existence of the Beatles. The single features John Lennon's prominent harmonica playing and duet vocals by him and Paul McCartney. Three recorded versions of the song by the Beatles have been released, each with a different drummer. The first attempted recording from June 1962 featured Pete Best on drums, but was not officially released until the "Anthology 1" compilation in 1995. A second version was recorded three months later with Best's replacement Ringo Starr, and this was used for the original Parlophone single. A third version, featuring session drummer Andy White in place of Starr, was included on the band's "Please Please Me" album and on the 1964 Tollie single that hit in the US; it was also included on the American LPs "Introducing... The Beatles" and "The Early Beatles".


title: Love Me Do

text: "Love Me Do" was written by Lennon and McCartney, with McCartney writing the verse and chorus and Lennon contributing the middle eight (or "bridge"). Lennon said: "'Love Me Do' is Paul's song... I do know he had the song around, in Hamburg, even, way, way before we were songwriters."


title: Love Me Do

text: Their practice at the time was to scribble songs in a school notebook, dreaming of stardom, always writing "Another Lennon–McCartney Original" at the top of the page. "Love Me Do" is a song based around three simple chords: G7 and C, before moving to D for its middle eight. It begins with Lennon playing a bluesy dry "dockside harmonica" riff, then features Lennon and McCartney on joint lead vocals, including Everly Brothers-style harmonising during the beseeching ""please"" before McCartney sings the unaccompanied vocal line on the song's title phrase.


title: Love Me Do

text: Lennon had previously sung the title sections, but this change in arrangement was made in the studio under the direction of producer George Martin when he realised that the harmonica part encroached on the vocal. Lennon needed to begin playing the harmonica again on the same beat as the "do" of "love me do". However, when a similar situation later occurred on the "Please Please Me" single session the harmonica was superimposed afterwards using tape-to-tape overdubbing.


title: Love Me Do

text: Described by Ian MacDonald as "standing out like a bare brick wall in a suburban sitting-room, 'Love Me Do', [with its] blunt working class northerness, rang the first faint chime of a revolutionary bell" compared to the standard Tin Pan Alley productions occupying the charts at the time.


title: Love Me Do

text: "Love Me Do" was recorded by the Beatles on three occasions with three drummers at EMI Studios at 3 Abbey Road in London:


title: Love Me Do

text: First issues of the single, released on Parlophone in the UK on 5 October 1962, featured the Ringo Starr version, prompting Mark Lewisohn to later write: "Clearly, the 11 September version was not regarded as having been a significant improvement after all".


title: Love Me Do

text: The Andy White version of the track was included on The Beatles' debut UK album, "Please Please Me", "The Beatles' Hits EP", and subsequent album releases on which "Love Me Do" was included (except as noted below), as well as on the first US single release in April 1964. For the 1976 single re-issue and the 1982 "20th Anniversary" re-issue, the Andy White version was again used. The Ringo Starr version was included on the albums "Rarities" (US version), "Past Masters", and "Mono Masters". It was also included on Record 1 of "The Beatles Box". The CD single issued on 2 October 1992 contains both versions. The Pete Best version remained unreleased until 1995, when it was included on the "Anthology 1" album.


title: Love Me Do

text: Capitol Records Canada pressed 170 singles which were released on 4 February 1963 with catalogue number 72076. This pressing was dubbed from the original UK single and featured Ringo Starr on drums.


title: Love Me Do

text: "Love Me Do", featuring Starr drumming, was also recorded eight times at the BBC and played on the BBC radio programmes "Here We Go", "Talent Spot", "Saturday Club", "Side By Side", "Pop Go The Beatles" and "Easy Beat" between October 1962 and October 1963. The version of "Love Me Do" recorded on 10 July 1963 at the BBC and broadcast on the 23 July 1963 "Pop Go the Beatles" programme can be heard on The Beatles' album "Live at the BBC". The Beatles also performed the song live on the 20 February 1963 "Parade of the Pops" BBC radio broadcast.


title: Love Me Do

text: In 1969, during the "Get Back sessions", The Beatles played the song in a slower, more bluesy form than they had in earlier recordings. This version of "Love Me Do" is one of many recordings made during these sessions and subsequently appeared on some bootlegs. The song featured no harmonica by Lennon, and McCartney sang the majority of the song in the same vocal style he used for "Lady Madonna".


title: Love Me Do

text: The Beatles' first recording session under contract to EMI was on 6 June 1962. They first attempted "Love Me Do", as well as three other songs, at this session. George Martin, originally absent from the session, arrived during the recording of "Love Me Do" and altered the arrangement so that Paul McCartney sang the words "love me do" instead of John Lennon, enabling Lennon to play the harmonica starting on the word "do". McCartney recalled:


title: Love Me Do

text: George Martin said, "Wait a minute, there's a crossover there. Someone else has got to sing 'love me do' because you're going to have a song called Love Me "Waahhh". So, Paul, will you sing 'love me do'? God, I got the screaming heebie-jeebies. ... I can still hear the shake in my voice when I listen to it.


title: Love Me Do

text: This version of "Love Me Do" also featured a change in drum rhythm during the middle-eight, moving to a skip beat that Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn deemed "disastrous". Both Martin and Ron Richards agreed that Best's drumming was unsuitable for future recording.


title: Love Me Do

text: On 4 September 1962, Brian Epstein paid for the Beatles—along with their new drummer, Ringo Starr—to fly down from Liverpool to London for their next session. After first checking into their Chelsea hotel, they arrived at EMI Studios early in the afternoon where they set up their equipment in Studio 3 and began rehearsing six songs including: "Please Please Me", "Love Me Do" and a song originally composed for Adam Faith by Mitch Murray called "How Do You Do It?" which George Martin "was insisting, in the apparent absence of any stronger original material, would be the group's first single". Lennon and McCartney had yet to impress Martin with their songwriting ability, and the Beatles had been signed as recording artists on the basis of their charismatic appeal: "It wasn't a question of what they could do [as] they hadn't written anything great at that time." "But what impressed me most was their personalities. Sparks flew off them when you talked to them." During the course of an evening session that then followed (7:00 pm to 10:00 pm in Studio 2) they recorded "How Do You Do It" and "Love Me Do". An attempt at "Please Please Me" was made, but at this stage it was quite different from its eventual treatment and it was dropped by Martin. This was a disappointment for the group as they had hoped it would be the B-side to "Love Me Do".


title: Love Me Do

text: The Beatles were keen to record their own material, something which was almost unheard of at that time, and it is generally accepted that it is to George Martin's credit that they were allowed to float their own ideas. But Martin insisted that unless they could write something as commercial as "How Do You Do It?" then the Tin Pan Alley practice of having the group record songs by professional songwriters (which was standard procedure then, and is still common today) would be followed. MacDonald points out, however: "It's almost certainly true that there was no other producer on either side of the Atlantic then capable of handling the Beatles without damaging them—let alone of cultivating and catering to them with the gracious, open-minded adeptness for which George Martin is universally respected in the British pop industry." Martin rejects however the view that he was the "genius" behind the group: "I was purely an interpreter. The genius was theirs: no doubt about that."


title: Love Me Do

text: It was on the 4 September session that, according to McCartney, Martin suggested using a harmonica. However, Lennon's harmonica part was present on the "Anthology 1" version of the song recorded during the 6 June audition with Pete Best on drums. Also, Martin's own recollection of this is different, saying: "I picked up on 'Love Me Do' because of the harmonica sound", adding: "I loved wailing harmonica—it reminded me of the records I used to issue of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. I felt it had a definite appeal."


title: Love Me Do

text: Lennon had learned to play a chromatic harmonica that his Uncle George (late husband of his Aunt Mimi) had given to him as a child. But the instrument being used at this time was one stolen by Lennon from a music shop in Arnhem, the Netherlands, in 1960, as the Beatles first journeyed to Hamburg by road. Lennon would have had this with him at the EMI audition on 6 June as Bruce Channel's "Hey Baby", with its harmonica intro, and a hit in the UK in March 1962, was one of the thirty-three songs the Beatles had prepared (although only four were recorded: "Bésame Mucho"; "Love Me Do"; "P.S. I Love You" and "Ask Me Why", of which only "Bésame Mucho" and "Love Me Do" survive and appear on "Anthology 1"). Brian Epstein had also booked the American Bruce Channel to top a NEMS Enterprises promotion at New Brighton's Tower Ballroom, in Wallasey on 21 June 1962, just a few weeks after "Hey Baby" had charted, and placed the Beatles a prestigious second on the bill. Lennon was so impressed that night with Channel's harmonica player, Delbert McClinton, that he later approached him for advice on how to play the instrument. Lennon makes reference also to Frank Ifield's "I Remember You" and its harmonica intro, a huge number one hit in the UK July 1962, saying: "The gimmick was the harmonica. There was a terrible thing called "I Remember You", and we did those numbers; and we started using it on "Love Me Do" just for arrangements". The harmonica was to become a feature of the Beatles' early hits such as "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You" as well as various album tracks. Paul McCartney recalled, "John expected to be in jail one day and he'd be the guy who played the harmonica."


title: Love Me Do

text: Martin came very close to issuing "How Do You Do It?" as the Beatles' first single (it would also re-appear as a contender for their second single) before settling instead on "Love Me Do", as a mastered version of it was made ready for release and which still exists in EMI's archives. Martin commented later: "I looked very hard at 'How Do You Do It?', but in the end I went with 'Love Me Do', it was quite a good record." McCartney would remark: "We knew that the peer pressure back in Liverpool would not allow us to do 'How Do You Do It'." Martin nearly issued the record, but was stymied by pressure from EMI's publishing arm, Ardmore & Beechwood, who requested that a Lennon–McCartney song be the Beatles' first A-side single. Additionally, "How Do You Do It" songwriter Mitch Murray disliked the Beatles' version of the song.


title: Love Me Do

text: Martin then decided that as "Love Me Do" was going to be the group's debut release it needed to be re-recorded with a different drummer as he was unhappy with the 4 September drum sound (Abbey Road's Ken Townsend also recalls McCartney being dissatisfied with Starr's timing, due probably to his being under-rehearsed; Starr had joined the group only two weeks before the 4 September session). Record producers at that time were used to hearing the bass drum "lock in" with the bass guitar as opposed to the much looser R&B feel that was just beginning to emerge, and so professional show band drummers were often used for recordings.


title: Love Me Do

text: Ron Richards, placed in charge of the 11 September re-recording session in George Martin's absence, booked Andy White whom he had used in the past. Starr was expecting to play, and was very disappointed to be dropped for only his second Beatles recording session: Richards remembers "He just sat there quietly in the control box next to me. Then I asked him to play maracas on 'P.S. I Love You'. Ringo is lovely—always easy going". Starr recalled:


title: Love Me Do

text: Paul McCartney: "George got his way and Ringo didn't drum on the first single. He only played tambourine. I don't think Ringo ever got over that. He had to go back up to Liverpool and everyone asked, 'How did it go in the Smoke?' We'd say, 'B-side's good,' but Ringo couldn't admit to liking the A-side, not being on it" (from "Anthology"). "Love Me Do" was recorded with White playing drums and Starr on tambourine, but whether using a session drummer solved the problem is unclear, as session engineer Norman Smith was to comment: "It was a real headache trying to get a [good] drum sound, and when you listen to the record now you can hardly hear the drums at all." Ringo Starr's version was mixed "bottom-light" to hide Starr's bass drum.


title: Love Me Do

text: Early pressings of the single (issued with a red Parlophone label) are the 4 September version—minus tambourine—with Starr playing drums. But later pressings of the single (on a black Parlophone label), and the version used for the "Please Please Me" album, are the 11 September re-record with Andy White on drums and Starr on tambourine. This difference has become fundamental in telling the two recordings of "Love Me Do" apart. Regarding the editing sessions that then followed all these various takes, Ron Richards remembers the whole thing being a bit fraught, saying: "Quite honestly, by the time it came out I was pretty sick of it. I didn't think it would do anything."


title: Love Me Do

text: There are major discrepancies regarding the White session, and who produced it. In his book "Summer of Love", Martin concedes that his version of events differs from some accounts, saying: "On the 6 June Beatles session (audition) I decided that Pete Best had to go [and said to Epstein] I don't care what you do with Pete Best; but he's not playing on any more recording sessions: I'm getting a session drummer in." When Starr turned up with the group for their first proper recording session on 4 September, Martin says that he was totally unaware that the Beatles had fired Best; and, not knowing "how good, bad or indifferent" Starr was, was not prepared to "waste precious studio time finding out." Martin, therefore, appears to have this as the Andy White session in which Martin was present, and not 11 September. This contradicts Mark Lewisohn's account, as in his book "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions", he has Starr on drums on 4 September and White for the 11 September re-make. Lewisohn also says that Richards was in charge on 11 September, which means, if accurate, that Richards was sole producer of the White version of "Love Me Do". Martin says, "My diary shows that I did not oversee any Beatles recording sessions on 11 September—only the one on 4 September." But, if Lewisohn's account is correct and "the 4 September session really hadn't proved good enough to satisfy George Martin", it might seem odd that Martin was not then present to oversee the 11 September remake.


title: Love Me Do

text: In his memoirs, assistant engineer Geoff Emerick supports the Lewisohn version, recounting that Starr played drums at the 4 September session (Emerick's second day at EMI) and that Martin, Smith, and McCartney were all dissatisfied with (the underrehearsed) Starr's timekeeping. Emerick places White firmly at the second session, and describes the reactions of Mal Evans and Starr to the substitution. Emerick also noted that Martin only came in very late for the 11 September session, after work on "Love Me Do" was complete.


title: Love Me Do

text: Andy White confirms that he was booked by Ron Richards for the 11 September session, not by George Martin, who he says "could not make the session, could not get there till the end, so he had Ron Richards handle it". White also says that he recognises his own drumming on the released version of "Please Please Me", recorded that same session with him on drums. White, however was not at the studio for the final recording on 26 November and was only hired for the 11 September session (this run through with White can be heard on "Anthology 1").


title: Love Me Do

text: At first, US copies of "Love Me Do" were imported from Canada, which included Starr on drums. On 27 April 1964, Vee-Jay Records released the single on the Tollie label with White on drums.


title: Love Me Do

text: The song was the fourth of six songs by the Beatles to hit number one in a one-year period; an all-time record for the US charts. In order, these were "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "She Loves You", "Can't Buy Me Love", "Love Me Do", "A Hard Day's Night", and "I Feel Fine". It was also the fourth of seven songs written by Lennon–McCartney to hit number one in 1964 (the other being "A World Without Love", recorded by Peter and Gordon). That remains an all-time record on the US charts for writing the most songs to hit number one in the same calendar year.


title: Love Me Do

text: EMI released a 50th anniversary limited-edition replica of the original single, featuring "Love Me Do" backed with "P.S. I Love You", in October 2012.


title: Love Me Do

text: The 7-inch disc was originally scheduled to hit stores on 5 October but was recalled when it was discovered that the pressings contained the Andy White version instead of the Ringo Starr version as intended. The White version was recalled, and the correct version with Ringo Starr on drums was issued on 22 October 2012.


title: Love Me Do

text: On the version released on the original UK single, the US album "Rarities", "Past Masters", and "Mono Masters":


title: Love Me Do

text: On the version released on "Please Please Me", "The Beatles' Hits", the US single, and compilation albums including "1962–1966" ("The Red Album") and "1":


title: Lisa Blount

text: Lisa Suzanne Blount (July 1, 1957 – October 27, 2010) was an American film and television actress, and Academy Award-winning producer.


title: Lisa Blount

text: Blount was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, to Margaret Louise Martin and Glen Roscoe Blount, and was raised in Jacksonville, Arkansas. After graduating from Jacksonville High School and studying theatre at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and Valdosta State University in Georgia, she landed several small television roles. She returned to college in 1986, this time at San Francisco State University (SFSU), where she completed her degree in Theater Arts and spent the 1986/1987 academic year competing on SFSU's Forensics (Speech and Debate) Team. In the fall of 1987, she was cast as the female lead in the American Conservatory Theater's highly successful revival of the musical "Hair".


title: Lisa Blount

text: Blount received a Golden Globe nomination for new star of the year for her performance in "An Officer and a Gentleman", and she acted in the 1987 cult horror film "Prince of Darkness". Another memorable role was that of Jim Profit's outrageous stepmother Bobbi Stakowski in the short-lived television series "Profit". She appeared in season two of "Moonlighting" in the episode "Sleep Talkin' Guy" (1986).


title: Lisa Blount

text: Blount later became a producer, and with her husband Ray McKinnon, won the Academy Award in 2001 for best live action short film for the film "The Accountant". That film also credits her as wardrobe mistress. Blount produced and acted in "Chrystal", which starred Billy Bob Thornton.


title: Lisa Blount

text: Blount was found dead in her home in Little Rock, Arkansas by her mother on October 27, 2010. The coroner told the "Arkansas Democrat-Gazette" that Blount appeared to have died two days earlier. No foul play was suspected, according to the Pulaski County coroner.


title: Lisa Blount

text: Although the coroner did not release an official cause of death, Blount's mother told RadarOnline.com that her daughter had had idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), in which low levels of platelets keep blood from clotting and lead to bleeding and bruising. "I think that might have been part of the problem when she passed away because when I found her she had a purple look on her neck that looked like blood on the surface".


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: The Phi Phi Islands (, , ) are an island group in Thailand between the large island of Phuket and the Straits of Malacca coast of Thailand. The islands are administratively part of Krabi Province. Ko Phi Phi Don (, ) ("ko" 'island') is the largest and most populated island of the group, although the beaches of the second largest island, Ko Phi Phi Le (, ) are visited by many people as well. The rest of the islands in the group, including Bida Nok, Bida Nai, and Bamboo Island (Ko Mai Phai), are not much more than large limestone rocks jutting out of the sea. The islands are reachable by speedboats or long-tail boats most often from Krabi town or from piers in Phuket Province.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: Phi Phi Don was initially populated by Thai Malays fishermen during the late-1940s, and later became a coconut plantation. The resident Thai population of Phi Phi Don remains more than 80 percent Muslim. The current population however—if counting transient workers—is more Buddhist than Muslim. The resident population is between 2,000 and 3,000 people (2013).


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: The islands came to worldwide prominence when Ko Phi Phi Le was used as a location for the 2000 British-American film "The Beach". This attracted criticism, with claims that the film company had damaged the island's environment - the producers supposedly bulldozed beach areas and planted palm trees to make it better resemble descriptions in the book, an accusation the filmmakers contest. An increase in tourism was attributed to the film's release, which resulted in increased environmental degradation. Phi Phi Le is home to the "Viking Cave", where there is a thriving industry harvesting edible bird's nests.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: Ko Phi Phi was devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, when nearly all of the island's infrastructure was destroyed.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: The name "Phi Phi" (pronounced "phi-phi") originates from Malay. The original name for the islands was "Pulau Api-Api" ('the fiery isle'). The name refers to the "Pokok Api-Api", or "fiery tree" (grey mangrove) which is found on the islands.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: There are six islands in the group known as Phi Phi. They lie southeast of Phuket and are part of Hat Nopparat Thara-Ko Phi Phi National Park. The national park covers an area of 242,437 rai (38,790 ha). which is home to an abundance of corals and marine life. There are limestone mountains with cliffs, caves, and long white sandy beaches.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Le are the largest and best-known islands. Phi Phi Don is : in length and wide. Phi Phi Le is . In total, the islands occupy .


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: There are two administrative villages on Ko Phi Phi under the administration of the Ao Nang sub-district, Mueang Krabi District, Krabi Province. There are nine settlements under these two villages.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: Hat Noppharat Thara - Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park is influenced by tropical monsoon winds. There are two seasons: the rainy season from May till December and the hot season from January till April. Average temperature ranges between . Average rainfall per year is about , with wettest month being July and the driest February.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: Since the re-building of Ko Phi Phi after the 2004 tsunami, paved roads now cover the vast majority of Ton Sai Bay and Loh Dalum Bay. All roads are for pedestrian use only with push carts used to transport goods and bags. The only permitted motor vehicles are reserved for emergency services. Bicycling is the most popular form of transport in Ton Sai.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: The nearest airports are at Krabi, Trang, and Phuket. All three have direct road and boat connections.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: There are frequent ferry boats to Ko Phi Phi from Phuket, Ko Lanta, and Krabi town starting at 08:30. Last boats from Krabi and Phuket depart at 14:30. In the "green season" (Jun-Oct), travel to and from Ko Lanta is via Krabi town only.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: The islands feature beaches and clear water, and the natural environment is protected by national park status. Tourism on the islands exploded since the release of the movie "The Beach".


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: Phi Phi Le's Maya Bay was closed to tourists from June 2018 until the ecosystem recovers, but at least a year.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: There is a small hospital on Phi Phi Island for emergencies. Its main purpose is to stabilize emergencies and evacuate to a Phuket hospital. It is between the Phi Phi Cabana Hotel and the Ton Sai Towers, about a 5–7 minute walk from the main pier.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: On 26 December 2004, much of the inhabited part of Phi Phi Don was devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami. The island's main village, Ton Sai (Banyan Tree, ), is built on a sandy isthmus between the island's two long, tall limestone ridges. On both sides of Ton Sai are semicircular bays lined with beaches. The isthmus rises less than above sea level.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: Shortly after 10:00 on 26 December, the water from both bays receded. When the tsunami hit, at 10:37, it did so from both bays, and met in the middle of the isthmus. The wave that came into Ton Sai Bay was high. The wave that came into Loh Dalum Bay was high. The force of the larger wave from Loh Dalum Bay pushed the tsunami and also breached low-lying areas in the limestone karsts, passing from Laa Naa Bay to Bakhao Bay, and at Laem Thong (Sea Gypsy Village), where 11 people died. Apart from these breaches, the east side of the island experienced only flooding and strong currents. A tsunami memorial was built to honor the deceased but has since been removed for the building of a new hotel in 2015.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: After the tsunami, approximately 70% of the buildings on the island had been destroyed. By the end of July 2005, an estimated 850 bodies had been recovered, and an estimated 1,200 people were still missing. The total number of fatalities is unlikely to be known. Local tour guides cite the figure 4,000. Of Phi Phi Don residents, 104 surviving children had lost one or both parents.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the permanent residents were housed in a refugee camp at Nong Kok in Krabi Province.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: On 6 January 2005, a former Dutch resident of Phi Phi, Emiel Kok, set up a voluntary organization, "Help International Phi Phi" ("HI Phi Phi"). HI Phi Phi recruited 68 Thai staff from the refugee camp, as well as transient backpacker volunteers (of whom more than 3,500 offered their assistance), and returned to the island to undertake clearing and rebuilding work. On 18 February 2005, a second organization, Phi Phi Dive Camp, was set up to remove the debris from the bays and coral reef, most of which was in Ton Sai Bay.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: By the end of July 2005, 23,000 tonnes of debris had been removed from the island, of which 7,000 tonnes had been cleared by hand. "We try and do as much as possible by hand," said Kok, "that way we can search for passports and identification." The majority of buildings that were deemed fit for repair by government surveyors had been repaired, and 300 businesses had been restored. HI Phi Phi was nominated for a "Time Magazine" Heroes of Asia award.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: As of 6 December 2005, nearly 1,500 hotel rooms were open, and a tsunami early-warning alarm system had been installed by the Thai government with the help of volunteers.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: Since the tsunami, Phi Phi has come under greater threat from mass tourism. Dr Thon Thamrongnawasawat, an environmental activist and member of Thailand's National Reform Council, is campaigning to have Phi Phi tourist numbers capped before its natural beauty is completely destroyed. With southern Thailand attracting thousands more tourists every day, Dr Thon makes the point that the ecosystem is under threat and is fast disappearing. "Economically, a few people may be enriched, but their selfishness will come at great cost to Thailand", says Dr Thon, a marine biology lecturer at Kasetsart University and an established environmental writer.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: More than one thousand tourists arrive on Phi Phi daily. This figure does not include those who arrive by chartered speedboat or yacht. Phi Phi produces about of solid waste a day, rising to during the high season and most of this waste leaves Phi Phi island into the ocean - untreated; in fact, Phi Phi Island releases 83% wastewater untreated. All tourists arriving on the island pay a 20-baht fee at Ton Sai Pier to assist in "keeping Ko Phi Phi clean". "We collect up to 20,000 baht a day from tourists at the pier. The money is then used to pay a private company to haul the rubbish from the island to the mainland in Krabi to be disposed of", Mr Pankum Kittithonkun, Ao Nang Administration Organization ("OrBorTor") President, said. The boat takes about 25 tonnes of trash from the island daily, weather permitting. "Ao Nang OrBorTor" pays 600,000 baht per month for the service. During high season, an Ao Nang "OrBorTor" boat is used to help transport the overflow of rubbish. Further aggravating Phi Phi's waste issues is sewage. "We have no wastewater management plant there. Our only hope is that hotels, restaurants and other businesses act responsibly – but I have no faith in them," Mr Pankum said. "They of course have to treat their own wastewater before releasing it into the sea, but they very well could just be turning the devices on before officers arrive to check them." The fundamental issue is that the budget allocated for Ao Nang and Phi Phi is based on its registered population, not on the number of people it hosts every year, Mr Pankum said.


title: Phi Phi Islands

text: In June 2018, Maya Beach, made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio's 2000 film "The Beach", was closed indefinitely to allow it to recover. The beach used to receive up to 5,000 tourists and 200 boats a day.


title: Draco (lawgiver)

text: Draco (; , "Drakōn"; fl. c. 7th century BC), also called Drako or Drakon, was the first recorded legislator of Athens in Ancient Greece. He replaced the prevailing system of oral law and blood feud by the Draconian constitution, a written code to be enforced only by a court of law. Draco was the first democratic legislator requested by the Athenian citizens to be a lawgiver for the city-state, but the citizens had not expected that Draco would establish laws characterized by their harshness.


title: Draco (lawgiver)

text: Since the 19th century, the adjective "draconian" (Greek: "δρακόντειος" "drakónteios") refers to similarly unforgiving rules or laws, in Greek, English, and other European languages.


title: Draco (lawgiver)

text: During the 39th Olympiad, in 622 or 621 BC, Draco established the legal code with which he is identified.


title: Draco (lawgiver)

text: Little is known about Draco’s life. He may have belonged to the Greek nobility of Attica prior to the period of the Seven Sages of Greece, as per the 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, the Suda. The Suda chronicles a folkloric story of his death in the Aeginetan theatre: in a traditional ancient Greek show of approval, his supporters "threw so many hats and shirts and cloaks on his head that he suffocated, and was buried in that same theatre". The truth about his death is still unclear, but it is known that Draco was driven out of Athens by the Athenians to the neighbouring island of Aegina, where he spent the remainder of his life.


title: Draco (lawgiver)

text: The laws ( – ) that he laid were the first written constitution of Athens. So that no one would be unaware of them, they were posted on wooden tablets ( – ), where they were preserved for almost two centuries on steles of the shape of four-sided pyramids ( – ). The tablets were called , perhaps because they could be pivoted along the pyramid's axis to read any side.


title: Draco (lawgiver)

text: The laws were particularly harsh. For example, any debtor whose status was lower than that of his creditor was forced into slavery. The punishment was more lenient for those owing a debt to a member of a lower class. The death penalty was the punishment for even minor offences, such as stealing a cabbage. Concerning the liberal use of the death penalty in the Draconic code, Plutarch states:


title: Draco (lawgiver)

text: All Draco's laws were repealed by Solon in the early 6th century BC, with the exception of the homicide law.


title: Draco (lawgiver)

text: After much debate, the Athenians decided to revise the laws, including the homicide law, in 409 BC. The homicide law is a highly fragmented inscription, but states that it is up to the victim's relatives to prosecute a killer. According to the preserved part of the inscription, unintentional homicides received a sentence of exile.


title: Draco (lawgiver)

text: It is not clear whether Draco's law specified the punishment for intentional homicide. In 409 BC, intentional homicide was punished by death, but Draco's law begins: 'καὶ ἐὰμ μὲ ‘κ [π]ρονοί[α]ς [κ]τ[ένει τίς τινα, φεύγ]ε[ν]' Although ambiguous and difficult to translate, one suggested translation is: "Even if a man not intentionally kills another, he is exiled."


title: Draco (lawgiver)

text: Draco introduced the lot-chosen Council of Four Hundred, distinct from the Areopagus, which evolved in later constitutions to play a large role in Athenian democracy. Aristotle notes that Draco, while having the laws written, merely legislated for an existing unwritten Athenian constitution such as setting exact qualifications for eligibility for office.


title: Draco (lawgiver)

text: Draco extended the franchise to all free men who could furnish themselves with a set of military equipment. They elected the Council of Four Hundred from among their number; nine archons and the treasurers were drawn from persons possessing an unencumbered property of not less than ten "minas", the generals ("strategoi") and commanders of cavalry ("hipparchoi") from those who could show an unencumbered property of not less than a hundred "minas" and had children born in lawful wedlock over ten years of age. Thus, in the event of their death, their estate could pass to a competent heir. These officers were required to hold to account the "prytanes" (councillors), "strategoi" (generals) and "hipparchoi" (cavalry officers) of the preceding year until their accounts had been audited. "The Council of Areopagus was guardian of the laws, and kept watch over the magistrates to see that they executed their offices in accordance with the laws. Any person who felt himself wronged might lay an information before the Council of Areopagus, on declaring what law was broken by the wrong done to him. But, as has been said before, loans were secured upon the persons of the debtors, and the land was in the hands of a few."


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until forced to resign in 1992, after the company had gone into precipitous decline.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The company produced many different product lines over its history. It is best known for the work in the minicomputer market starting in the mid-1960s. The company produced a series of machines known as the PDP line, with the PDP-8 and PDP-11 being among the most successful minis in history. Their success was only surpassed by another DEC product, the late-1970s VAX "supermini" systems that were designed to replace the PDP-11. Although a number of competitors had successfully competed with Digital through the 1970s, the VAX cemented the company's place as a leading vendor in the computer space.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: As microcomputers improved in the late 1980s, especially with the introduction of RISC-based workstation machines, the performance niche of the minicomputer was rapidly eroded. By the early 1990s, the company was in turmoil as their mini sales collapsed and their attempts to address this by entering the high-end market with machines like the VAX 9000 were market failures. After several attempts to enter the workstation and file server market, the DEC Alpha product line began to make successful inroads in the mid-1990s, but was too late to save the company.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: DEC was acquired in June 1998 by Compaq in what was at that time the largest merger in the history of the computer industry. During the purchase, some parts of DEC were sold to other companies; the compiler business and the Hudson Fab were sold to Intel. At the time, Compaq was focused on the enterprise market and had recently purchased several other large vendors. DEC was a major player overseas where Compaq had less presence. However, Compaq had little idea what to do with its acquisitions, and soon found itself in financial difficulty of its own. Compaq subsequently merged with Hewlett-Packard (HP) in May 2002.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson were two engineers who had been working at MIT Lincoln Laboratory on the lab's various computer projects. The Lab is best known for their work on what would today be known as "interactivity", and their machines were among the first where operators had direct control over programs running in real time. These had started in 1944 with the famed Whirlwind, which was originally developed to make a flight simulator for the US Navy, although this was never completed. Instead, this effort evolved into the SAGE system for the US Air Force, which used large screens and light guns to allow operators to interact with radar data stored in the computer.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: When the Air Force project wound down, the Lab turned their attention to an effort to build a version of the Whirlwind using transistors in place of vacuum tubes. In order to test their new circuitry, they first built a small 18-bit machine known as TX-0, which first ran in 1956. When the TX-0 successfully proved the basic concepts, attention turned to a much larger system, the 36-bit TX-2 with a then-enormous 64 kWords of core memory. Core was so expensive that parts of TX-0's memory were stripped for the TX-2, and what remained of the TX-0 was then given to MIT on permanent loan.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: At MIT, Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson noticed something odd: students would line up for hours to get a turn to use the stripped-down TX-0, while largely ignoring a faster IBM machine that was also available. The two decided that the draw of interactive computing was so strong that they felt there was a market for a small machine dedicated to this role, essentially a commercialized TX-0. They could sell this to users where graphical output or real-time operation would be more important than outright performance. Additionally, as the machine would cost much less than the larger systems then available, it would also be able to serve users that needed a lower-cost solution dedicated to a specific task, where a larger 36-bit machine would not be needed.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: In 1957, when the pair and Ken's brother Stan went looking for capital, they found that the American business community was hostile to investing in computer companies. Many smaller computer companies had come and gone in the 1950s, wiped out when new technical developments rendered their platforms obsolete, and even large companies like RCA and General Electric were failing to make a profit in the market. The only serious expression of interest came from Georges Doriot and his American Research and Development Corporation (AR&D). Worried that a new computer company would find it difficult to arrange further financing, Doriot suggested the fledgling company change its business plan to focus less on computers, and even change their name from "Digital Computer Corporation".


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The pair returned with an updated business plan that outlined two phases for the company's development. They would start by selling computer modules as stand-alone devices that could be purchased separately and wired together to produce a number of different digital systems for lab use. Then, if these "digital modules" were able to build a self-sustaining business, the company would be free to use them to develop a complete computer in their Phase II. The newly christened "Digital Equipment Corporation" received $70,000 from AR&D for a 70% share of the company, and began operations in a Civil War era textile mill in Maynard, Massachusetts, where plenty of inexpensive manufacturing space was available.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: In early 1958, DEC shipped its first products, the "Digital Laboratory Module" line. The Modules consisted of a number of individual electronic components and germanium transistors mounted to a circuit board, the actual circuits being based on those from the TX-2.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The Laboratory Modules were packaged in an extruded aluminum housing, intended to sit on an engineer's workbench, although a rack-mount bay was sold that held nine laboratory modules. They were then connected together using banana plug patch cords inserted at the front of the modules. Three versions were offered, running at 5 MHz (1957), 500 kHz (1959), or 10 MHz (1960). The Modules proved to be in high demand in other computer companies, who used them to build equipment to test their own systems. Despite the recession of the late 1950s, the company sold $94,000 worth of these modules during 1958 alone (), turning a profit at the end of its first year.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The original Laboratory Modules were soon supplemented with the "Digital System Module" line, which were identical internally but packaged differently. The Systems Modules were designed with all of the connections at the back of the module using 22-pin Amphenol connectors, and were attached to each other by plugging them into a backplane that could be mounted in a 19-inch rack. The backplanes allowed 25 modules in a single 5-1/4 inch section of rack, and allowed the high densities needed to build a computer.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The original laboratory and system module lines were offered in 500 kilocycle, 5 megacycle and 10 megacycle versions. In all cases, the supply voltages were -15 and +10 volts, with logic levels of -3 volts (passive pull-down) and 0 volts (active pull-up).


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: DEC used the System Modules to build their "Memory Test" machine for testing core memory systems, selling about 50 of these pre-packaged units over the next eight years. The PDP-1 and LINC computers were also built using System Modules (see below).


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Modules were part of DEC's product line into the 1970s, although they went through several evolutions during this time as technology changed. The same circuits were then packaged as the first "R" (red) series "Flip-Chip" modules. Later, other Flip-Chip module series provided additional speed, much higher logic density, and industrial I/O capabilities. DEC published extensive data about the modules in free catalogs that became very popular.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: With the company established and a successful product on the market, DEC turned its attention to the computer market once again as part of its planned "Phase II". In August 1959, Ben Gurley started design of the company's first computer, the PDP-1. In keeping with Doriot's instructions, the name was an initialism for "Programmable Data Processor", leaving off the term "computer". As Gurley put it, "We aren't building computers, we're building 'Programmable Data Processors'." The prototype was first shown publicly at the Joint Computer Conference in Boston in December 1959. The first PDP-1 was delivered to Bolt, Beranek and Newman in November 1960, and formally accepted the next April. The PDP-1 sold in basic form for $120,000 (). By the time production ended in 1969, 53 PDP-1s had been delivered.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The PDP-1 was supplied standard with 4096 words of core memory, 18-bits per word, and ran at a basic speed of 100,000 operations per second. It was constructed using many System Building Blocks that were packaged into several 19-inch racks. The racks were themselves packaged into a single large mainframe case, with a hexagonal control panel containing switches and lights mounted to lie at table-top height at one end of the mainframe. Above the control panel was the system's standard input/output solution, a punched tape reader and writer. Most systems were purchased with two peripherals, the Type 30 vector graphics display, and a Soroban Engineering modified IBM Model B Electric typewriter that was used as a printer. The Soroban system was notoriously unreliable, and often replaced with a modified Friden Flexowriter, which also contained its own punched tape system. A variety of more-expensive add-ons followed, including magnetic tape systems, punched card readers and punches, and faster punched tape and printer systems.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: When DEC introduced the PDP-1, they also mentioned larger machines at 24, 30 and 36 bits, based on the same design. During construction of the prototype PDP-1, some design work was carried out on a 24-bit PDP-2, and the 36-bit PDP-3. Although the PDP-2 never proceeded beyond the initial design, the PDP-3 found some interest and was designed in full. Only one PDP-3 appears to have been built, in 1960, by the CIA's Scientific Engineering Institute (SEI) in Waltham, Massachusetts. According to the limited information available, they used it to process radar cross section data for the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft. Gordon Bell remembered that it was being used in Oregon some time later, but could not recall who was using it.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: In November 1962, DEC introduced the $65,000 PDP-4. The PDP-4 was similar to the PDP-1 and used a similar instruction set, but used slower memory and different packaging to lower the price. Like the PDP-1, about 54 PDP-4's were eventually sold, most to a customer base similar to the original PDP-1.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: In 1964, DEC introduced its new Flip Chip module design, and used it to re-implement the PDP-4 as the PDP-7. The PDP-7 was introduced in December 1964, and about 120 were eventually produced. An upgrade to the Flip Chip led to the R series, which in turn led to the PDP-7A in 1965. The PDP-7 is most famous as the original machine for the Unix operating system, and until the Interdata 8/32 Unix only ran on DEC systems.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: A more dramatic upgrade to the PDP-1 series was introduced in August 1966, the PDP-9. The PDP-9 was instruction-compatible with the PDP-4 and −7, but ran about twice as fast as the −7 and was intended to be used in larger deployments. At only $19,900 in 1968, the PDP-9 was a big seller, eventually selling 445 machines, more than all of the earlier models combined.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Even while the PDP-9 was being introduced, its replacement was being designed, and was introduced as 1969's PDP-15, which re-implemented the PDP-9 using integrated circuits in place of modules. Much faster than the PDP-9 even in basic form, the PDP-15 also included a floating point unit and a separate input/output processor for further performance gains. Over 400 PDP-15's were ordered in the first eight months of production, and production eventually amounted to 790 examples in 12 basic models. However, by this time other machines in DEC's lineup could fill the same niche at even lower price points, and the PDP-15 would be the last of the 18-bit series.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: In 1962, Lincoln Laboratory used a selection of System Building Blocks to implement a small 12-bit machine, and attached it to a variety of analog-to-digital (A to D) input/output (I/O) devices that made it easy to interface with various analog lab equipment. The LINC proved to attract intense interest in the scientific community, and has since been referred to as the first real minicomputer, a machine that was small and inexpensive enough to be dedicated to a single task even in a small lab.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Seeing the success of the LINC, in 1963 DEC took the basic logic design but stripped away the extensive A to D systems to produce the PDP-5. The new machine, the first outside the PDP-1 mould, was introduced at WESTCON on August 11, 1963. A 1964 ad expressed the main advantage of the PDP-5, "Now you can own the PDP-5 computer for what a core memory alone used to cost: $27,000". 116 PDP-5s were produced until the lines were shut down in early 1967. Like the PDP-1 before it, the PDP-5 inspired a series of newer models based on the same basic design that would go on to be more famous than its parent.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: On March 22, 1965, DEC introduced the PDP-8, which replaced the PDP-5's modules with the new R-series modules using Flip Chips. The machine was re-packaged into a small tabletop case, which remains distinctive for its use of smoked plastic over the CPU which allowed one to easily see the wire-wrapped internals of the CPU. Sold standard with 4 kWords of 12-bit core memory and a Teletype Model 33 ASR for basic input/output, the machine listed for only $18,000. The PDP-8 is referred to as the first "real" minicomputer because of its sub-$25,000 price. Sales were, unsurprisingly, very strong, and helped by the fact that several competitors had just entered the market with machines aimed directly at the PDP-5's market space, which the PDP-8 trounced. This gave the company two years of unrestricted leadership, and eventually 1450 "straight eight" machines were produced before it was replaced by newer implementations of the same basic design.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: DEC hit an even lower price-point with the PDP-8/S, the S for "serial". As the name implies the /S used a serial arithmetic unit, which was much slower but reduced costs so much that the system sold for under $10,000. DEC then used the new PDP-8 design as the basis for a new LINC, the two-processor LINC-8. The LINC-8 used one PDP-8 CPU and a separate LINC CPU, and included instructions to switch from one to the other. This allowed customers to run their existing LINC programs, or "upgrade" to the PDP-8, all in software. Although not a huge seller, 142 LINC-8s were sold starting at $38,500. Like the original LINC to PDP-5 evolution, the LINC-8 was then modified into the single-processor PDP-12, adding another 1000 machines to the 12-bit family. Newer circuitry designs led to the PDP-8/I and PDP-8/L in 1968. In 1975, one year after an agreement between DEC and Intersil, the Intersil 6100 chip was launched, effectively a PDP-8 on a chip. This was a way to allow PDP-8 software to be run even after the official end-of-life announcement for the DEC PDP-8 product line.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: While the PDP-5 introduced a lower-cost line, 1963's PDP-6 was intended to take DEC into the mainframe market with a 36-bit machine. However, the PDP-6 proved to be a "hard sell" with customers, as it offered few obvious advantages over similar machines from the better-established vendors like IBM or Honeywell, in spite of its low cost around $300,000. Only 23 were sold, or 26 depending on the source, and unlike other models the low sales meant the PDP-6 was not improved with successor versions. However, the PDP-6 is historically important as the platform that introduced "Monitor", an early time-sharing operating system that would evolve into the widely used TOPS-10.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: When newer Flip Chip packaging allowed the PDP-6 to be re-implemented at a much lower cost, DEC took the opportunity to refine their 36-bit design, introducing the PDP-10 in 1968. The PDP-10 was as much a success as the PDP-6 was a commercial failure; about 700 mainframe PDP-10s were sold before production ended in 1984. The PDP-10 was widely used in university settings, and thus was the basis of many advances in computing and operating system design during the 1970s. DEC later re-branded all of the models in the 36-bit series as the "DECsystem-10", and PDP-10s are generally referred to by the model of their CPU, starting with the "KA10", soon upgraded to the "KI10" (I:Integrated circuit); then to "KL10" (L:Large-scale integration ECL logic); also the "KS10" (S: Small form factor). Unified product line upgrades produced the compatible DECSYSTEM-20, along with a TOPS-20 operating system that included virtual memory support.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The Jupiter Project was supposed to continue the mainframe product line into the future by using "gate arrays" with an innovative Air Mover Cooling System, coupled with a built-in floating point processing engine called "FBOX". The design was intended for a top tier scientific computing niche, yet the critical performance measurement was based upon COBOL compilation which did not fully utilize the primary design features of Jupiter technology. When the Jupiter Project was cancelled in 1983, some of the engineers adapted aspects of the 36-bit design into a forthcoming 32-bit design, releasing the high-end VAX8600 in 1985.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: DEC's successful entry into the computer market took place during a fundamental shift in the underlying organization of the machines from word lengths based on 6-bit characters to those based on 8-bit words needed to support ASCII. DEC began studies of such a machine, the PDP-X, but Ken Olsen did not support it as he could not see how it offered anything their existing 12-bit or 18-bit machines didn't. This led the leaders of the PDP-X project to leave DEC and start Data General, whose 16-bit Data General Nova was released in 1969 and was a huge success.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The success of the Nova finally prompted DEC to take the switch seriously, and they began a crash program to introduce a 16-bit machine of their own. The new system was designed primarily by Harold McFarland, Gordon Bell, Roger Cady, and others. The project was able to leap forward in design with the arrival of Harold McFarland, who had been researching 16-bit designs at Carnegie Mellon University. One of his simpler designs became the basis for the new design, although when they first viewed the proposal, management was not impressed and almost cancelled it.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The result was the PDP-11, released in 1970. It differed from earlier designs considerably. In particular, the new design did not include many of the addressing modes that were intended to make programs smaller in memory, a technique that was widely used on other DEC machines and CISC designs in general. This would mean the machine would spend more time accessing memory, which would slow it down. However, the machine also extended the idea of multiple "General Purpose Registers" (GPRs), which gave the programmer flexibility to use these high-speed memory caches as they needed, potentially addressing the performance issues.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: A major advance in the PDP-11 design was DEC's Unibus, which supported all peripherals through memory mapping. This allowed a new device to be added easily, generally only requiring plugging a hardware interface board into the backplane and possibly adding a jumper to the wire wrapped backplane, and then installing software that read and wrote to the mapped memory to control it. The relative ease of interfacing spawned a huge market of third party add-ons for the PDP-11, which made the machine even more useful.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The combination of architectural innovations proved superior to competitors and the "11" architecture was soon the industry leader, propelling DEC back to a strong market position. The design was later expanded to allow paged physical memory and memory protection features, useful for multitasking and time-sharing. Some models supported separate instruction and data spaces for an effective virtual address size of 128 kB within a physical address size of up to 4 MB. Smaller PDP-11s, implemented as single-chip CPUs, continued to be produced until 1996, by which time over 600,000 had been sold.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The PDP-11 supported several operating systems, including Bell Labs' new Unix operating system as well as DEC's DOS-11, RSX-11, IAS, RT-11, DSM-11, and RSTS/E. Many early PDP-11 applications were developed using standalone paper-tape utilities. DOS-11 was the PDP-11's first disk operating system, but was soon supplanted by more capable systems. RSX provided a general-purpose multitasking environment and supported a wide variety of programming languages. IAS was a time-sharing version of RSX-11D. Both RSTS and Unix were time-sharing systems available to educational institutions at little or no cost, and these PDP-11 systems were destined to be the "sandbox" for a rising generation of engineers and computer scientists. Large numbers of PDP-11/70s were deployed in telecommunications and industrial control applications. AT&T Corporation became DEC's largest customer.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: RT-11 provided a practical real-time operating system in minimal memory, allowing the PDP-11 to continue DEC's critical role as a computer supplier for embedded systems. Historically, RT-11 also served as the inspiration for many microcomputer OS's, as these were generally being written by programmers who cut their teeth on one of the many PDP-11 models. For example, CP/M used a command syntax similar to RT-11's, and even retained the awkward PIP program used to copy data from one computer device to another. As another historical footnote, DEC's use of "/" for "switches" (command-line options) would lead to the adoption of "\" for pathnames in MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows as opposed to "/" in Unix.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The evolution of the PDP-11 followed earlier systems, eventually including a single-user deskside personal computer form, the MicroPDP-11. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of all models were sold. and a wide variety of third-party peripheral vendors had also entered the computer product ecosystem. It was even sold in kit form as the Heathkit H11, although it proved too expensive for Heathikit's traditional hobbyist market.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The introduction of semiconductor memory in the early 1970s, and especially dynamic RAM shortly thereafter, led to dramatic reductions in the price of memory as the effects of Moore's Law were felt. Within years, it was common to equip a machine with all the memory it could address, typically 64 kB on 16-bit machines. This led vendors to introduce new designs with the ability to address more memory, often by extending the address format to 18 or 24-bits in machines were otherwise similar to their earlier 16-bit designs.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: In contrast, DEC decided to make a more radical departure. In 1976, they began the design of a machine whose entire architecture was expanded from the 16-bit PDP-11 to a new 32-bit basis. This would allow the addressing of very large memories, which were to be controlled by a new virtual memory system, and would also improve performance by processing twice as much data at a time. The system would, however, maintain compatibility with the PDP-11, by operating in a second mode that sent its 16-bit words into the 32-bit internals, while mapping the PDP-11's 16-bit memory space into the larger virtual 32-bit space.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The result was the VAX architecture, where VAX stands for Virtual Address eXtension (from 16 to 32 bits). The first computer to use a VAX CPU was the VAX-11/780, announced in October 1977, which DEC referred to as a "superminicomputer". Although it was not the first 32-bit minicomputer, the VAX-11/780's combination of features, price, and marketing almost immediately propelled it to a leadership position in the market after it was released in 1978. VAX systems were so successful that in 1983, DEC canceled its Jupiter project, which had been intended to build a successor to the PDP-10 mainframe, and instead focused on promoting the VAX as the single computer architecture for the company.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Supporting the VAX's success was the VT52, one of the most successful smart terminals. Building on earlier less successful models, the VT05 and VT50, the VT52 was the first terminal that did everything one might want in a single inexpensive chassis. The VT52 was followed by the even more successful VT100 and its follow-ons, making DEC one of the largest terminal vendors in the industry. This was supported by a line of inexpensive computer printers, the DECwriter line. With the VT and DECwriter series, DEC could now offer a complete top-to-bottom system from computer to all peripherals, which formerly required collecting the required devices from different suppliers.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The VAX processor architecture and family of systems evolved and expanded through several generations during the 1980s, culminating in the NVAX microprocessor implementation and VAX 7000/10000 series in the early 1990s.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: When a DEC research group demonstrated two prototype microcomputers in 1974—before the debut of the MITS Altair—Olsen chose to not proceed with the project. The company similarly rejected another personal computer proposal in 1977. At the time these systems were of limited utility, and Olsen famously derided them in 1977, stating "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." Unsurprisingly, DEC did not put much effort into the microcomputer area in the early days of the market. In 1977, the Heathkit H11 was announced; a PDP-11 in kit form. At the beginning of the 1980s, DEC built the VT180 (codenamed "Robin"), which was a VT100 terminal with an added Z80-based microcomputer running CP/M, but this product was initially available only to DEC employees.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: It was only after IBM had successfully launched the IBM PC in 1981 that DEC responded with their own systems. In 1982, DEC introduced not one, but three incompatible machines which were each tied to different proprietary architectures. The first, the DEC Professional, was based on the PDP-11/23 (and later, the 11/73) running the RSX-11M+ derived, but menu-driven, P/OS ("Professional Operating System"). This DEC machine easily outperformed the PC, but was more expensive than, and completely incompatible with IBM PC hardware and software, offering far fewer options for customizing a system.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Unlike CP/M and DOS microcomputers, every copy of every program for the Professional had to be provided with a unique key for the particular machine and CPU for which it was bought. At that time this was mainstream policy, because most computer software was either bought from the company that built the computer or custom-constructed for one client. However, the emerging third-party software industry disregarded the PDP-11/Professional line and concentrated on other microcomputers where distribution was easier. At DEC itself, creating better programs for the Professional was not a priority, perhaps from fear of cannibalizing the PDP-11 line. As a result, the Professional was a superior machine, running inferior software. In addition, a new user would have to learn an awkward, slow, and inflexible menu-based user interface which appeared to be radically different from PC DOS or CP/M, which were more commonly used on the 8080- and 8088-based microcomputers of the time. A second offering, the DECmate II was the latest version of the PDP-8-based word processors, but not really suited to general computing, nor competitive with Wang Laboratories' popular word processing equipment.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The most popular early DEC microcomputer was the dual-processor (Z80 and 8088) Rainbow 100, which ran the 8-bit CP/M operating system on the Z80 and the 16-bit CP/M-86 operating system on the Intel 8088 processor. It could also run a UNIX System III implementation called VENIX. Applications from standard CP/M could be re-compiled for the Rainbow, but by this time users were expecting custom-built (pre-compiled binary) applications such as Lotus 1-2-3, which was eventually ported along with MS-DOS 2.0 and introduced in late 1983. Although the Rainbow generated some press, it was unsuccessful due to its high price and lack of marketing and sales support. By late 1983 IBM was outselling DEC's personal computers by more than ten to one.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: A further system was introduced in 1986 as the VAXmate, which included Microsoft Windows 1.0 and used VAX/VMS-based file and print servers along with integration into DEC's own DECnet-family, providing LAN/WAN connection from PC to mainframe or supermini. The VAXmate replaced the Rainbow, and in its standard form was the first widely marketed diskless workstation.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: In 1984, DEC launched its first 10 Mbit/s Ethernet. Ethernet allowed scalable networking, and VAXcluster allowed scalable computing. Combined with DECnet and Ethernet-based terminal servers (LAT), DEC had produced a networked storage architecture which allowed them to compete directly with IBM. Ethernet replaced Token Ring, and went on to become the dominant networking model in use today.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Along with the hardware and protocols, DEC also introduced the VAXcluster concept, which allowed several VAX machines to be tied together into a single larger storage system. VAXclusters allowed a DEC-based company to scale their services by adding new machines to the cluster at any time, as opposed to buying a faster machine and using that to replace a slower one. The flexibility this offered was compelling, and allowed DEC to attack high-end markets formerly out of their reach.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The PDP-11 and VAX lines continued to sell in record numbers. Better yet, DEC was competing very well against the market leader, IBM, taking an estimated $2 billion away from them in the mid-80s. In 1986, DEC's profits rose 38% when the rest of the computer industry experienced a downturn, and by 1987 the company was threatening IBM's number one position in the computer industry. Not long thereafter came IBM's VAX Killer offerings, at a time when DEC had twice the sales of IBM in the mid-range computer market.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: At its peak, DEC was the second-largest computer company in the world, with over 100,000 employees. It was during this time that the company branched out development into a wide variety of projects that were far from its core business in computer equipment. The company invested heavily in custom software. In the 1970s and earlier most software was custom-written to serve a specific task, but by the 1980s the introduction of relational databases and similar systems allowed powerful software to be built in a modular fashion, potentially saving enormous amounts of development time. Software companies like Oracle became the new darlings of the industry, and DEC started their own efforts in every "hot" niche, in some cases several projects for the same niche. Some of these products competed with DEC's own partners, notably Rdb which competed with Oracle's products on the VAX, part of a major partnership only a few years earlier.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Although many of these products were well designed, most of them were DEC-only or DEC-centric, and customers frequently ignored them and used third-party products instead. This problem was further exacerbated by Olsen's aversion to traditional advertising and his belief that well-engineered products would sell themselves. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on these projects, at the same time that workstations using RISC microprocessors were starting to approach VAX CPUs in performance.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: As microprocessors continued to improve in the 1980s, it soon became clear that the next generation would offer performance and features equal to the best of DECs low-end minicomputer lineup. Worse, the Berkeley RISC and Stanford MIPS designs were aiming to introduce 32-bit designs that would outperform the fastest members of the VAX family, DEC's cash cow.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Constrained by the huge success of their VAX and VMS products, which followed the proprietary model, the company was very late to respond to these threats. In the early 1990s, DEC found its sales faltering and its first layoffs followed. The company that created the minicomputer, a dominant networking technology, and arguably the first computers for personal use, had abandoned the "low end" market, whose dominance with the PDP-8 had built the company in a previous generation. Decisions about what to do about this threat led to infighting within the company that seriously delayed their responses.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: One group suggested that every possible development in the industry be poured into the construction of a new VAX family that would leapfrog the performance of the existing machines. This would limit the market erosion in the top-end segment, where profit margins were maximized and DEC could continue to survive as a minicomputer vendor. This line of thought led, eventually, to the VAX 9000 series, which were plagued with problems when they were first introduced in October 1989, already two years late. The problems took so long to work out, and the prices of the systems were so high, that DEC was never able to make the line the success they hoped.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Others within the company felt that the proper response was to introduce their own RISC designs and use those to build new machines. However, there was little official support for these efforts, and no less than four separate small projects ran in parallel at various labs around the US. Eventually these were gathered into the PRISM project, which delivered a credible 32-bit design with some unique features allowing it to serve as the basis of a new VAX implementation. Infighting with teams dedicated to DEC's big iron made funding difficult, and the design was not finalized until April 1988, and then cancelled shortly thereafter. The PRISM project was accompanied by the MICA project, which intended to consolidate VMS and ULTRIX into a single operating system.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Another group concluded that new workstations like those from Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics would take away a large part of DEC's existing customer base before the new VAX systems could address the issues, and that the company needed its own Unix workstation as soon as possible. Fed up with slow progress on both the RISC and VAX fronts, a group in Palo Alto started a skunkworks project to introduce their own systems. Selecting the MIPS processor, which was widely available, introducing the new DECstation series with the model 3100 on January 11, 1989. These systems would see some success in the market, but were later displaced by similar models running the Alpha.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Eventually, in 1992, DEC launched the DECchip 21064 processor, the first implementation of their Alpha instruction set architecture, initially named Alpha AXP; the "AXP" was a "non-acronym" and was later dropped. This was a 64-bit RISC architecture as opposed to the 32-bit CISC architecture used in the VAX. It is one of the first "pure" 64-bit microprocessor architectures and implementations rather than an extension of an earlier 32-bit architecture. The Alpha offered class-leading performance at its launch, and subsequent variants continued to do so into the 2000s, along with the Alpha-derived Pentium Pro, II, and III CPUs. An AlphaServer SC45 supercomputer was still ranked No. 6 in the world in November 2004. Alpha-based computers comprising the DEC AXP series, later the AlphaStation, and AlphaServer series respectively superseded both the VAX and MIPS architecture in DEC's product lines. They supported OpenVMS, DEC OSF/1 AXP (later known as Digital Unix or Tru64 UNIX) and Microsoft's then-new operating system, Windows NT, an operating system made possible by ex-Digital Equipment Corporation engineers.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: In 1998, following the takeover by Compaq Computer Corporation, a decision was made that Microsoft would no longer support and develop Windows NT for the Alpha series computers, a decision that was seen as the beginning of the end for the Alpha series computers.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: In the mid-1990s, Digital Semiconductor collaborated with ARM Limited to produce the StrongARM microprocessor. This was based in part on ARM7 and in part on DEC technologies like Alpha, and was targeted at embedded systems and portable devices. It was highly compatible with the ARMv4 architecture and was very successful, competing effectively against rivals such as the SuperH and MIPS architectures in the portable digital assistant market. Microsoft subsequently dropped support for these other architectures in their Pocket PC platform. In 1997, as part of a lawsuit settlement, the StrongARM intellectual property was sold to Intel. They continued to produce StrongARM, as well as developing it into the XScale architecture. Intel subsequently sold this business to Marvell Technology Group in 2006.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: At its peak in the late 1980s, DEC had $14 billion in sales and ranked among the most profitable companies in the US. With its strong staff of engineers, DEC was expected to usher in the age of personal computers, but the autocratic and trend-resistant Mr. Olsen was openly skeptical of the desktop machines, saying "the personal computer will fall flat on its face in business", and regarding them as "toys" used for playing video games. DEC's fortunes declined after missing out on some critical market shifts, particularly toward the personal computer. The board forced Olsen to resign as president in July 1992.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: In June 1992, Ken Olsen was replaced by Robert Palmer as the company's president. DEC's board of directors also granted Palmer the title of chief executive officer ("CEO"), a title that had never been used during DEC's 35-year existence. Palmer had joined DEC in 1985 to run Semiconductor Engineering and Manufacturing. His relentless campaign to be CEO, and success with the Alpha microprocessor family, made him a candidate to succeed Olsen. At the same time a more modern logo was designed


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Palmer restructured DEC into nine business units that reported directly to him. Nonetheless, DEC continued to suffer record losses, including a loss of $260.5 million for the quarter that ended on September 30, 1992. It reported $2.8 billion in losses for its fiscal year 1992. January 5, 1993, saw the retirement of John F. Smith as senior vice president of operations, the second in command at DEC, and his position was not filled. A 35-year company veteran, he had joined DEC in 1958 as the company's 12th employee, passing up a chance to work for Bell Laboratories in New Jersey to work for DEC. Smith rose to become one of the three senior vice presidents in 1987 and was widely considered among the potential successors to Ken Olsen, especially when Smith was appointed chief operating officer in 1991. Smith became a corporate spokesman on financial issues, and had filled in at trouble spots for which Olsen ordered more attention. Smith was passed over in favor of Palmer when Olsen was forced to resign in July 1992, though Smith stayed on for a time to help turn around the struggling company.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: In June 1993, Palmer and several of his top lieutenants presented their reorganization plans to applause from the board of directors, and several weeks later DEC reported its first profitable quarter in several years. However, on April 15, 1994, DEC reported a loss of $183 million—three to four times higher than the loss many people on Wall Street had predicted (compared with a loss of $30 million in the comparable period a year earlier), causing the stock price on the NYSE to plunge $5.875 to $23, a 20% drop. The losses at that point totaled $339 million for the current fiscal year. Sales of the VAX, long the company's biggest moneymaker, continued to decline, which in turn also hurt DEC's lucrative service and maintenance business (this made up more than a third of DEC's revenue of $14 billion in the 1993 fiscal year), which declined 11% year over year to $1.5 billion in the most recent quarter.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Market acceptance of DEC Alpha computers and chips had been slower than the company had hoped, even though Alpha's sales for the quarter estimated at $275 million were up significantly from $165 million in the December quarter. DEC had also made a strong push into personal computers and workstations, which had even lower margins than Alpha computers and chips. Also, DEC was playing catchup with its own Unix offerings for client-server networks, as it long emphasized its own VMS software, while corporate computer users based their client-server networks on the industry-standard Unix software (of which Hewlett Packard was one of the market leaders). DEC's problems were similar to that of larger rival IBM, due to the fundamental shift in the computer industry that made it unlikely that DEC could ever again operate profitably at its former size of 120,000 employees, and while its workforce had been reduced to 92,000 people many analysts expected that they would have to cut another 20,000.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: During the profitable years up until the early 1990s, DEC was a company that boasted that it never had a general layoff. Following the 1992 economic downturn, layoffs became regular events as the company continually downsized to try to stay afloat. Palmer was tasked with the goal of bringing DEC back to profitability, which he attempted to do by changing the established DEC business culture, hiring new executives from outside the company, and selling off various non-core business units:


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Through 1997, DEC began discussions with Compaq on a possible merger. Several years earlier, Compaq had considered a bid for DEC but became seriously interested only after DEC's major divestments and refocusing on the Internet in 1997. At that time, Compaq was making strong moves into the enterprise market, and DEC's multivendor global services organization and customer support centers offered a real opportunity to expand their support and sales worldwide. Compaq was not interested in a number of DEC's product lines, which led to the series of sell-offs. Notable among these was DEC's Hudson Fab, which made most of their custom chips, a market that made little sense to Compaq's "industry standard" marketing. DEC had previously sold its semiconductor plant in South Queensferry to Motorola in 1995, with an understanding that Motorola would continue to produce Alpha processors at the facility, along with continuing a two-year foundry agreement with AMD to continue producing the Am486 processor.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: This led to an interesting solution to the problem of selling off the division for a reasonable profit. In May 1997, DEC sued Intel for allegedly infringing on its Alpha patents in designing the original Pentium, Pentium Pro, and Pentium II chips. As part of a settlement, much of DEC's chip design and fabrication business was sold to Intel. This included DEC's StrongARM implementation of the ARM computer architecture, which Intel marketed as the XScale processors commonly used in Pocket PCs. The core of Digital Semiconductor, the Alpha microprocessor group, remained with DEC, while the associated office buildings went to Intel as part of the Hudson fab.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: On January 26, 1998, what remained of the company was sold to Compaq in what was the largest merger up to that time in the computer industry. At the time of Compaq's acquisition announcement, DEC had a total of 53,500 employees, down from a peak of 130,000 in the 1980s, but it still employed about 65% more people than Compaq to produce about half the volume of sales revenues. After the merger closed, Compaq moved aggressively to reduce DEC's high selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs (equal to 24% of total 1997 revenues) and bring them more in line with Compaq's SG&A expense ratio of 12% of revenues.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Compaq used the acquisition to move into enterprise services and compete with IBM, and by 2001 services made up over 20% of Compaq's revenues, largely due to the DEC employees inherited from the merger. DEC's own PC manufacturing was discontinued after the merger closed. As Compaq did not wish to compete with one of its key partner suppliers, the remainder of Digital Semiconductor (the Alpha microprocessor group) was sold to Intel, which placed those employees back in their Hudson (Massachusetts) office, which they had vacated when the site was sold to Intel in 1997.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: Compaq struggled as a result of the merger with DEC, and was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2002. Compaq, and later HP, continued to sell many of the former DEC products but re-branded with their own logos. For example, HP now sells what were formerly DEC's StorageWorks disk/tape products, as a result of the Compaq acquisition.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: The Digital logo was used up until 2004, even after the company ceased to exist, as the logo of Digital GlobalSoft, an IT services company in India (which was a 51% subsidiary of Compaq). Digital GlobalSoft was later renamed "HP GlobalSoft" (also known as the "HP Global Delivery India Center" or HP GDIC), and no longer uses the Digital logo.


title: Digital Equipment Corporation

text: DEC's Research Laboratories (or Research Labs, as they were commonly known) conducted DEC's corporate research. Some of them were continued in operation by Compaq and are still operated by Hewlett-Packard. The laboratories were: