Quadram

Growing empire (1983–1990)

In 1983, Intelligent Systems purchased Quadram Corporation, a start-up company that manufactured expansion cards for personal computers, for $35 million in stock. Quadram was founded by J. Leland Strange, who stayed with Intelligent Systems, eventually becoming its CEO in 1988. Shortly after the Quadram purchase, it bought out Datavue Corporation, an early designer of portable computers. Intelligent Systems posted $90 million in sales in 1983, and in 1984, the company opened up Prints and Graphics, their marque for printers. Quadram was one of the progenitors of the enhanced EMS standard for DOS memory management, collaborating with Ashton-Tate and AST Research to write the standard, which was published in 1985. By March 1986 Quadram had 20% of the multifunction card market. In December 1985, the Quadram division bought a stake in Video Seven, a computer graphics technology based in Milpitas, California. A joint venture between Quadram and Video Seven bore the Quad EGA+ and the Vega Card, sold under the Quadram and Video Seven brands respectively; they were both EGA-compatible graphics cards that improved upon standard in a number of ways.