Ziff Davis, Inc. is an American digital media and internet company. Founded in 1927 by William Bernard Ziff Sr. and Bernard George Davis, the company primarily owns technology- and health-oriented media websites, online shopping-related services, internet connectivity services, gaming and entertainment brands, and cybersecurity and martech tools. Previously, the company was predominantly a publisher of hobbyist magazines.
ZDNET is a business technology news website owned and operated by Red Ventures. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT–focused online publication.
PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online-only publication.
Computer Gaming World (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through the 1990s and became one of the largest dedicated video game magazines, reaching around 500 pages by 1997.
Popular Electronics was an American magazine published by John August Media, LLC, and hosted at TechnicaCuriosa.com. The magazine was started by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company in October 1954 for electronics hobbyists and experimenters. It soon became the "World's Largest-Selling Electronics Magazine". In April 1957, Ziff-Davis reported an average net paid circulation of 240,151 copies. Popular Electronics was published until October 1982 when, in November 1982, Ziff-Davis launched a successor magazine, Computers & Electronics. During its last year of publication by Ziff-Davis, Popular Electronics reported an average monthly circulation of 409,344 copies. The title was sold to Gernsback Publications, and their Hands-On Electronics magazine was renamed to Popular Electronics in February 1989, and published until December 1999. The Popular Electronics trademark was then acquired by John August Media, who revived the magazine, the digital edition of which is hosted at TechnicaCuriosa.com, along with sister titles, Mechanix Illustrated and Popular Astronomy.
PC Magazine is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues as of 2024.
Zeos International, Ltd., was a PC manufacturer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Originally based in New Brighton, Minnesota, and founded by Gregory E. Herrick, the company incorporated in Minnesota in 1981. Prior to manufacturing PCs, the company was called NPC Electronics. NPC was a contract assembly business best known for developing a transmitter device called Radio Realty. Marketed primarily to real estate brokers, this product enabled prospective home buyers to tune in and listen to prerecorded information about a property listing while parked in front of the dwelling. Radio Realty was divested in the early 1980s as NPC started developing, manufacturing, and selling PCs under the Zeos name. The company went public in mid-1985 by self-underwriting, and officially changed its name from NPC Electronics to Zeos International.
FamilyPC was a monthly American computer magazine published from 1994 to 2001. The collaboration between The Disney Publishing Group and Ziff-Davis was a brainchild of Jake Winebaum, with Robin Raskin serving as its first editor-in-chief. The circulation of the magazine was 400,000 copies in 1998.
The LTE is a line of laptops manufactured by Compaq Computer Corporation, introduced in 1989 and discontinued in 1997. It was the first notebook-sized laptop sold by Compaq and the first commercially successful notebook computer, helping launch the burgeoning industry.
Radio News was an American monthly technology magazine published from 1919 to 1971. The magazine was started by Hugo Gernsback as a magazine for amateur radio enthusiasts, but it evolved to cover all the technical aspects to radio and electronics. In 1929, a bankruptcy forced the sale of Gernsback's publishing company to B. A. Mackinnon. In 1938, Ziff-Davis Publishing acquired the magazines.
The Deskpro 386 is a line of desktop computers in Compaq's Deskpro range of IBM PC compatibles. The computers feature Intel's 32-bit 80386 microprocessor. Introduced in September 1986, the Deskpro 386 is the first implementation of the 80386 processor in a computer system for sale to the public. It also marks the first time that a major component of the IBM Personal Computer de facto standard was updated by a company other than IBM themselves—in this case, upgrading from the 80286 processor of the Personal Computer/AT.
Reply Corporation, often shortened to Reply Corp., was an American computer company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1988 by Steve Petracca, the company licensed the Micro Channel architecture from IBM for their own computers released in 1989, competing against IBM's PS/2 line. The company later divested from offering complete systems in favor of marketing motherboard upgrades for older PS/2s. Reply enjoyed a close relationship with IBM, owing to many of its founding employees, including Petracca, having worked for IBM. The company was acquired by Radius in 1997.
American Computer & Peripheral, Inc. (AC&P), also written as American Computer and Peripheral, was an American computer company based in Santa Ana, California. The company was founded in 1985 by Alan Lau and released several expansion boards for the IBM PC as well as a few PC clones before going bankrupt in December 1989. Obscure in its own time, the company's 386 Translator was the first plug-in board for Intel's newly released 80386 processor and the first mass-market computing device to offer consumers a means of using the 386 in July 1986.
Canon Computer Systems, Inc. (CCSI), sometimes shortened to Canon Computer, was an American subsidiary of Canon Inc. formed in 1992 to develop and market the parent company's personal computers and workstations. The subsidiary also assumed the responsibility of marketing Canon's printers and photocopiers, which were formerly sold by other Canon divisions. It went defunct in January 2001.
DTK Computer is the name for international branches of Datatech Enterprises, a Taiwanese computer manufacturer. Founded in 1981, the company was an early supplier of peripherals for IBM PCs as well as PC compatible motherboards. In the late 1980s, the company switched to developing complete systems under the DTK name as well as serving as an OEM for motherboards and cases, as bought by other small computer companies and systems integrators.
DECpc was a wide-ranging family of desktop computers, laptops, servers, and workstations sold by Digital Equipment Corporation. The vast majority in the family are based on x86 processors, although the APX 150 uses DEC's own Alpha processor. The line was DEC's first big break into the IBM PC compatible market.
Librex Computer Systems Inc. was a short-lived American subsidiary of the Nippon Steel Corporation that manufactured notebook computers from 1990 to 1992. Librex had roots in Nippon Steel's Electronics and Information Systems Division (EISD) back in Japan, which starting in 1986 had formed joint ventures with several high-profile American computer companies. Librex was Nippon Steel EISD's first venture in the United States; it also set up Nippon Steel Computer PLC in the United Kingdom to sell identical products. The company's notebooks received praise in the technology press, but a fierce price war in the market for laptops in the early 1990s combined with dwindling profit margins compelled Nippon Steel to dissolve Librex in 1993.
Aox Inc. was a privately run American technology corporation founded by Michael and Linda Aronson in 1978. Over the course of its 22-year lifespan, the company chiefly developed software and hardware for IBM's PC and compatibles, for the Personal System/2, and for the Macintosh. In its twilight years, the company designed multimedia and teleconferencing devices and chip designs. Aox was founded after Michael Aronson graduated from Harvard University with a doctorate in physics; he stayed with the company until 2000, when he incorporated EndPoints Inc. and switched to full-time fabless semiconductor design.
Cumulus Corporation was an American computer peripheral and system manufacturer active from 1987 to 1993. Based in Beachwood, Ohio and started by Tecmar founder Martin Alpert, the company set out to exclusively manufacture expansion products for IBM's Personal System/2 (PS/2) family of computers—mainly RAM expansion cards. It later released cross-platform CPU upgrade cards and memory expansion cards for other platforms besides the PS/2. Beginning in 1990, the company began trading as Cumulus Computer Corporation and began releasing complete systems of their own. Initially a success story for the tech industry in Cleveland, a botched stock launch in 1992 proved disastrous for the company's ailing cash flow situation, and in 1993 the company was liquidated amid massive debt to suppliers and lenders.
