3R Computers, Inc., or RRR Computers, Inc., later Avatar Technologies, was an American computer company based in

Westborough, Massachusetts Westborough is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 21,567 at the 2020 Census, in over 7,000 households. Incorporated in 1717, the town is governed under the New England open town meeting system, headed ...

, known for their Avatar series of

dumb terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal and ...

-to-

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

devices.

History

As 3R Computers (1981–1983)

3R Computers was founded in

, in December 1981 by Edward G. Grace, Brad Hebert (born 1944), and Fred Schlaffer. All three had previously worked for the Data General Corporation, a large

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...

manufacturer whose headquarters were in the same city. Grace was named chief executive officer and president, while Hebert and Schlaffer both shared vice president status. The company spent a year in research and development before releasing the company's first product, the Avatar Terminal Converter (TC1), in late 1982. Grace cited dissatisfaction with Data General's reduction in complex projects amid the recession of the early 1980s as his reason for quitting: "Some companies are cutting back on esearch and development and frustrated engineers unable to work on their pet projects start looking around. ... It is not the money so much as the personal reward and the chance to work with the latest technology." The company's flagship line, the Avatar Terminal Converter family, comprised devices that are in essence full-fledged microcomputers equipped with special versions of operating systems that convert the

extended ASCII Extended ASCII is a repertoire of character encodings that include (most of) the original 96 ASCII character set, plus up to 128 additional characters. There is no formal definition of "extended ASCII", and even use of the term is sometimes critic ...

output of programs developed for those OSes (including

terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote termin ...

s) into the protocol supported by various

s in real time. This allowed inexpensive dumb terminals to either be used as standalone desktop computers, as intelligent terminals able to talk to a host minicomputer or

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

, or as both. The first in line, the TC1, was released in October 1982; it ran off a

Zilog Z80A The Z80 is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first wor ...

and came with

CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initial ...

2.2. It was equipped with one or two 5.25-inch floppy disk drives. In July 1983, 3R introduced the TC100 and TC3278, which paired the sole Z80A microprocessor with an Intel 8088-2 clocked at 8 MHz and features 128 KB of RAM stock (expandable to 256 KB) and one or two floppy drives. The TC100 is compatible with simple ASCII local and remote terminals while the TC3278 is specifically meant to be used with the IBM's 3270 glass terminal. In September 1983, the company released the Avatar PA1000, a

protocol converter {{Use American English, date = March 2019 A protocol converter is a device used to convert standard or proprietary protocol of one device to the protocol suitable for the other device or tools to achieve the desired interoperability. Protocols are ...

that hooked up to terminals and IBM PCs and compatibles to allow them to communicate with the newest IBM mainframes of the day.

As Avatar Technologies (1983–1992)

In developing these products 3R incurred a significant amount of debt by the summer of 1983. In September that year, the company was granted $2.3 million in a private placement of stock by six investors in order to alleviate debts and raise working capital. By January 1984, the company had changed its name to Avatar Technologies, Inc., and moved its headquarters to

Hopkinton, Massachusetts Hopkinton is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, west of Boston. The town is best known as the starting point of the Boston Marathon, held annually on Patriots' Day each April, and as the headquarters for the Dell EMC corpo ...

. In March 1985, Avatar Technologies was acquired by Orange Nassau Electronics, the Arizona-based branch of the

Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

-based Orange Nassau Group. With this acquisition Orange Nassau hoped to expand their dealer network in the United States and their portfolio of computer-related products. Hebert left the company following the acquisition; he went on to work for Wall Data in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Washington. Avatar under the auspices of Orange Nassau, meanwhile, began developing products for

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

's original Macintosh line, allowing them to communicate with IBM mainframes. Between March 1987 and January 1988, Avatar released the Mac Mainframe SE and Mac Mainframe II, 3270 emulation hardware and software packages that lets the

Macintosh SE The Macintosh SE is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, from March 1987 to October 1990. It marked a significant improvement on the Macintosh Plus design and was introduced by Apple at the same time as the Mac ...

and II, respectively, communicate with IBM mainframes. By the 1990s, Avatar had opened up a facility in

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara (; Spanish for " Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Bay Area. Located in the southern Bay Area, the cit ...

. In December 1992, the company was acquired by Digital Communications Associates (DCA) of

Alpharetta, Georgia Alpharetta is a city in northern Fulton County, Georgia, United States, and is a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. As of the 2020 US Census, Alpharetta's population was 65,818 The population in 2010 was 57,551. History In the 1830s, the Ch ...

, for US$8 million. ACE decided to shutter both its Hopkinton and Santa Clara plants.

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em 1981 establishments in Massachusetts 1992 disestablishments in Massachusetts 1992 mergers and acquisitions American companies established in 1981 American companies disestablished in 1992 Computer companies established in 1981 Computer companies disestablished in 1992 Defunct computer companies based in Massachusetts Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct computer systems companies

History

As 3R Computers (1981–1983)

As Avatar Technologies (1983–1992)

See also

References