Altos Computer Systems

Altos Computer Systems was founded in 1977 by David G. Jackson and Roger William Vass Sr. It focused on small multi-user computers, starting with multi-user derivatives of CP/M, and later including Unix and Xenix-based machines. In its 1982 initial public offering on NASDAQ, the company raised $59M. Thereafter the company's stock was traded under the symbol ALTO.

Coming under increasing pressure from competitors in the server market, such as Compaq and Sun Microsystems, Altos posted a $5M loss (its first ever) in the fiscal year ending in June, 1989. In the aftermath, Altos was acquired by Acer in 1990 for $94M, although mostly for its US distribution channels rather than its technology. Shortly before this acquisition, there were about 128,000 Altos systems installed throughout the world.

According to a brief history of the company, which ran as an advertisement on their 10th anniversary, Altos Computer Systems was started by Dave Jackson in 1977 when he designed a single-board microcomputer in a room he rented on Stevens Creek Boulevard. According to this account, the company bootstrapped itself with profitable sales from the beginning, with a revenue of $260,000 in the first year. Jackson named the company after Los Altos Hills, California, where he lived.

In an interview from May 1979, the company's vice-president Roger Vass described the Altos' strategy at the time as selling OEM computer systems. Vass also said that the company's revenue had reached an annual figure of $5M that year, after 15 months of operations. The company's single-board computer product was named "Sun-Series 8000" at this point; it was based on 4-MHz Z80 processor and shipped with 32 KB of RAM, expandable to 64 KB. Altos eschewed using the (fairly standard at the time) S-100 bus, but packed their board with a disk controller (which could connect up to two 8-inch Shugart drives), two serial and one parallel port, while also leaving room for another optional Z80 to be used as DMA controller and an optional AMD 9511 floating-point coprocessor. As operating system, this machine could use CP/M or Oasis.

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