Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s. Also known as DEC and using the trademark DIGITAL, its PDP and VAX products were the most successful minicomputers. From 1957 until 1992 its headquarters was located in a former wool mill at Clock Tower Place, Maynard, Massachusetts. DEC was acquired in June 1998 by Compaq, which subsequently merged with Hewlett-Packard in May 2002. Some parts of DEC, notably the compiler business and the Hudson, Massachusetts... facility, were sold to Intel. Digital Equipment Corporation should not be confused with the unrelated companies Digital Research, Inc or Western Digital . Initially focusing on the small-end of the computer market allowed DEC to grow without its potential competitors making serious efforts to compete with them. Their PDP series of machines became popular in the 1960s, especially the PDP-8, widely considered to be the first successful minicomputer.
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