Tadpole Computer
Computer manufacturing company From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tadpole Computer was a manufacturer of rugged, military specification, UNIX workstations, thin client laptops and lightweight servers.
| |
| Founded | 1994 |
|---|---|
| Defunct | 2005 |
| Fate | Acquired by General Dynamics |
| Headquarters | Cupertino , United States |
| Products | Laptops, servers, workstations |
| Website | www.tadpolecomputer.com |
History
Tadpole was founded in 1994[1] and originally based in Cambridge, England, then for a time in Cupertino, California.[2]
In 1998, Tadpole acquired RDI Computer Corporation of Carlsbad, California,[3] who produced the competing Britelite and Powerlite portable SPARC-based systems, for $6 million.[4]
Tadpole was later acquired by defense contractor General Dynamics, in April 2005.[5]
Production continued until March 2013 but since then, they no longer sell any systems; and support for their products is provided by Flextronics.
An anonymous US intelligence officer had stated to Reuters in 2013 that a decade earlier the US secretly created a company reselling laptops from Tadpole Computer to Asian governments. The reseller added secret software that allowed intelligence analysts to access the machines remotely.[6]
Products
Summarize
Perspective
Tadpole laptops used a variety of architectures, such as SPARC, Alpha, PowerPC and x86.[1] Although very expensive, these classic Tadpoles won favour as a method to show corporation's proprietary software (IBM/HP/DEC) on a self-contained portable device on a client site in the days before remote connectivity.[citation needed]
SPARC
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The original SPARCbook 1[7] was introduced in 1992 with 8–32 MB RAM and a 25 MHz processor.[8][9] It was followed by several further SPARCbooks, UltraSPARCbooks (branded as Ultrabooks) – and the Voyager IIi.[10][11] These all ran the SunOS or Solaris operating systems.[12][13][14][15] In 2004, Tadpole released the Viper laptop.[16]
The SPARCLE was based on a 500-600 MHz UltraSPARC IIe or 1 GHz UltraSPARC IIIi.[17]
DEC Alpha
An Alpha-based laptop, the ALPHAbook 1, was announced on 4 December 1995 and became available in 1996. The Alphabook 1 was manufactured in Cambridge, England. It used an Alpha 21066A microprocessor specified for a maximum clock frequency of 233 MHz. The laptop used the OpenVMS operating system.[18][19]
IBM PowerPC
A PowerPC-based laptop was also produced – the IBM RISC System/6000 N40 Notebook Workstation, powered by a 50 MHz PowerPC 601 and with between 16 and 64MB RAM – and designed to run IBM AIX.[20][21]
x86
Tadpole also produced a range of x86-based notebook computers, including the Tadpole P1000, and the TALIN laptops with SUSE Linux, or optionally Microsoft Windows.[22]
See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tadpole Computer Inc. computers.
- Military computers
- RDI PowerLite
- Toughbook, Panasonic's rugged portable computers
References
External links
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