Connectix

From Freepedia

Connectix Corporation was a software and hardware company, noted for having released innovative products that were either made obsolete as Apple incorporated the ideas into system software, or were sold to other companies once they become popular. It was formed in October 1988 by Jon Garber; dominant board members were Garber, Bonnie Fought (the two were later married), and close friend Roy McDonald. McDonald was still Chief Executive Officer and president when Connectix finally closed in August 2003.

Primary products included:

• Virtual, its original flagship product, which introduced virtual memory to the Macintosh OS years before Apple introduced System 7 (Virtual also ran on a motley assortment of accelerator cards for the original Mac / Mac Plus / Mac SE line, which were not supported under Apple's virtual memory implementation);
• MODE32 software, which allowed 32-bit addressing on "32-bit-dirty" Macintosh systems (later bought by Apple and distributed for free, at least in part to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by customers who demanded to know why their 32-bit 68020 microprocessors could not access more than 8 megabytes of RAM);
• Connectix Powerbook Utilities ("CPU"), an early utility for making portable Macintoshes more usable (made obsolete as Apple folded similar technology into their OS);
• RAM Doubler, the first product to combine compression with virtual memory (made obsolete as RAM prices plunged);
• Speed Doubler, which combined an enhanced disk cache, better Finder copy utility, and a dynamically recompiling 68K-to-PowerPC emulator (made obsolete as Apple incorporated their own dynamically recompiling emulator into newer Macs);
• QuickCam webcams (sold to Logitech);
• Virtual Game Station, PlayStation emulation software (sold to Sony, who bought it only after their lawsuit to stop it failed, and then dropped the product immediately); and
• Virtual PC and Virtual server emulation software of x86-based personal computers for the Macintosh and Windows (sold to Microsoft).

With the sale of Virtual PC development and support, staff were transferred to Microsoft, including Chief Technical Officer Eric Traut, but not including any of the Connectix board members. Its Macintosh products, including DoubleTalk, CopyAgent and RAM Doubler, were discontinued.