Apollo Computer Inc. | 1980 ~ 1989

 Apollo Computer Inc. was founded in 1980 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts by William Poduska (co-founder of Prime Computer) and other individuals. In the 1980s, Apollo developed and produced Apollo/Domain workstations. Along with Symbolics and Sun Microsystems, Apollo was one of the leading manufacturers of graphic workstations in the 1980s. Unlike manufacturers of IBM PC-compatible devices at the time, Apollo mainly produced its own hardware and software.

Apollo was acquired by Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 1989 for $476 million (approximately $1.17 billion in 2023), and its business gradually wound down from 1990 to 1997. However, HP integrated Apollo's technology into its HP 9000 series workstations and servers, and Apollo continued to exist under the HP Apollo brand for a while. In 2014, the brand was revived as part of HP's high-performance computing portfolio.

Founded in 1980, Apollo was two years ahead of its competitor Sun Microsystems. The founding engineers included Dave Nelson (engineering), Mike Greata (engineering), Charlie Spector (COO), Bob Antonuccio (manufacturing), Gerry Stanley (sales and marketing), and Dave Lubrano (finance). The engineering team consisted of Mike Sporer, Bernie Stumpf, Russ Barbour, Paul Leach, Andy Marcuvitz, and others.

Apollo was the first company to launch a standalone workstation. In 1981, Apollo introduced the DN100 workstation using the Motorola 68000 microprocessor. Apollo workstations used the proprietary operating system Aegis, which was later replaced by Domain/OS. Aegis was an operating system with a Unix-like shell. Apollo's network system was particularly advanced, supporting demand paging over the network and offering network transparency with a low system administrator-to-machine ratio.

From 1980 to 1987, Apollo was the largest manufacturer of network workstations. By the end of 1986, quarterly revenue exceeded $100 million, and by the end of 1987, Apollo had twice the market share of Sun Microsystems in the global engineering workstation market. By the end of 1987, Apollo was third in market share, behind Digital Equipment Corporation and Sun Microsystems, surpassing HP and IBM. Major customers of Apollo included Mentor Graphics (electronic design), General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Chicago Research and Trading (options and futures), and Boeing.

In 1989, Apollo was acquired by HP for $476 million, and from 1990 to 1997, its business gradually wound down. HP integrated Apollo's technology into its HP 9000 series workstations and servers. Apollo developed the DSEE (Domain Software Engineering Environment), a revision control system that influenced IBM's DevOps Code ClearCase.

Apollo's machines ran the proprietary operating system Aegis, which was developed because Unix's single-CPU licensing costs were prohibitively high. Aegis borrowed concepts from the Multics time-sharing system and included features like shell programming, single-level storage, and object-oriented design. Aegis was written in a proprietary Pascal language.

The Aegis system used a dual 68000 processor configuration, where one processor ran the operating system and program instructions, while the other handled page faults. When a page fault occurred, the main CPU would stop, and the "fixer" processor would retrieve the page into memory, allowing the main CPU to continue processing without knowing about the page fault. This dual-processor design became unnecessary with the later Motorola 68010 processor.

Domain/OS was initially built as a layer on top of Aegis, not on top of a Unix kernel. Version 10 included many elements of Unix but suffered from compatibility issues with older versions, leading to a larger and slower system. Eventually, HP discontinued the Domain/OS line. Version 10 was released during a time when competitors like X Window System were leading in the graphics and windowing systems.

Apollo also used its own Token Ring network, which was designed for small networks with fewer computers but was not compatible with other network hardware or software. Later, Apollo supported Ethernet and TCP/IP and continued to support Domain network routing, modeled after Xerox Network Systems.

Apollo also adopted IBM's AT bus, introducing systems compatible with the second generation of IBM PCs, and later embraced RISC technology, leading to the release of the PRISM line.

The workstation industry faced difficulties in the late 1980s as IBM PCs and IBM PC-compatible devices began to erode Apollo's customer base.

In 1984, Thomas Vanderslice became president and CEO, and in 1985, William Poduska left the company to found Stellar. By 1987, Apollo suffered significant losses due to currency speculation and declining product demand, and in 1989, it was acquired by HP. In 1992, HP reorganized support for Apollo products, and more than 100,000 users were still using Apollo products. In 1993, Sun offered discounts to customers exchanging Apollo products, and HP introduced a similar program for customers purchasing HP workstations.

Apollo gradually wound down from 1990 to 1997, and HP continued to integrate Apollo's technology into its products while retaining the Apollo brand.

The model naming convention uses DN (Domain Node) along with a model number. If the system has no display, it is named DSP (Domain Service Processor).

The first model was the DN416 workstation, later renamed DN100 when the green screen was replaced with a black-and-white screen. This system used two 68000 processors and implemented virtual memory (which the 68000 was not theoretically capable of) by stopping one processor during a page fault and having the other processor handle the fault, resuming the primary processor once the fault was resolved. Later models used 68010, 68020, 68030, and 68040 processors, which natively supported virtual memory. Some workstations implemented bit-slice CPUs that were instruction set compatible with the 68000.

The DSP90 is a file server built using a standard Multibus backplane and I/O controllers. The disk controller supports up to four 500MB hard drives, and a 9-track tape controller was also released.

Early performance models were the DN560 and DN660, housed in desk-side cabinets. These models could be equipped with color graphics cards featuring graphics accelerators.

The DN300 and later DN330 were integrated desktop systems, nearly the same size as the included monitor.

In the late 1980s, Apollo released two new models, the DN3000 and DN4000, which used the 68020 processor but were housed in IBM PC-style cases with IBM-AT compatible ISA expansion slots and PC-compatible disk drives. These models became the mainstream in the Apollo range during the mid to late 1980s. While users or third parties could install standard AT expansion cards, doing so required writing special device drivers, so it was relatively rare. However, the design made it easy to install or replace components. Typical systems had between 2MB and 32MB of memory, 76MB, 150MB, or 330MB (occasionally 660MB) hard disks, and 32-bit 68020 or 68030 processors running at 12 MHz to 33 MHz. A half-height expansion bay could accommodate a 5¼-inch floppy disk drive or a QIC-type cartridge tape drive with capacities of 30 MB, 45 MB, or 60 MB. The system came with a serial port as standard, and a serial/parallel expansion card could provide a parallel printer port.

The DN3000 and DN4000 were later upgraded to the DN3500 and DN4500 with faster 68030 CPUs, with the DN3500 being approximately as powerful as the DN4000. A limited run of the DN5500 was also produced with a 68040 processor.

The DN10000 series used Apollo PRISM processors.

Soon after HP acquired Apollo, the base DN2500 workstation was released at $3,900, advertised as "4 Mips, 4 MB of memory, for under $4,000." This model featured a single integrated motherboard using PC standard DRAM single in-line memory modules, a significant departure from competitors still using custom memory modules. The motherboard included a SCSI disk controller for an optional hard disk drive and a single AT expansion slot dedicated to a network card, allowing the system to connect to any of the three supported networks: Apollo Token Ring, IBM Token Ring, or Ethernet. The base configuration supported a display with a resolution of 1024 x 800 and supported monochrome displays up to 1280 x 1024. Powered by a 68030 processor with a 68882 floating-point unit running at 20 MHz, it came with 4MB to 16MB of RAM. This model was priced around $4,000 and was considered a significant improvement in the price/performance ratio. Educational institutions could purchase the base configuration for as low as $2,500.

The HP/Apollo 425t and HP/Apollo 433s integrated workstations running Domain/OS or HP-UX were produced. The 425t featured a "pizza box" design with a single network expansion slot, while the 433s was a desk-side server system with multiple expansion slots.