 | |
| Company type | Corporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer hardware |
| Founded | 1975 |
| Founder | K. Philip Hwang |
| Fate | Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2006; disestablished in 2011 |
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | Terminals, Graphic boards for Terminals, TeleVideo TS-800, TS-802, TS-803, TS-804, TeleVideo TS-1603, TeleVideo TPC-1, TeleVideo TS-806, TS-816 |
| Website | televideo.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 2005-03-06) |
TeleVideo Corporation was a U.S. company that achieved its peak of success in the early 1980s producing computer terminals. TeleVideo was founded in 1975 by K. Philip Hwang, a Utah State University, Hanyang University graduate born in North Korea [1] who closed a successful 7-Eleven franchise he and his wife had run, and invested $9000 in savings in the new company. [2] Hwang had run a business producing CRT monitors for arcade games since 1975. The company was headquartered in San Jose, California.
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TeleVideo's terminal protocol was popular in the early days of microcomputers and was widely supported by applications as well as terminal emulators (often referred to as "TeleVideo 925 emulation"). [4]
TeleVideo also built CP/M-compatible 8-bit desktop and portable personal computers based on the Z80 processor. [2] Up to sixteen of these machines could be connected to proprietary multi-user systems through serial interfaces. [5] After 1982 sales of $98.5 million, the company had an initial public offering in March 1983, valuing Hwang's shares in the company at $500 million. [6] In April 1983, TeleVideo introduced an MS-DOS 2.0-compatible personal computer based on the Intel 8088. This was introduced as the Model TS-1603 and included 128 KB RAM (expandable up to 256 KB), integrated monitor, modem and keyboard. The Model TS-1603 ran both TeleVideo PC DOS 2.0 and CP/M-86 1.1.
The company later turned to manufacturing Windows-compatible thin client computers, [7] but eventually sold this business line to Neoware in October 2005. [8] The latter was subsequently taken over by Hewlett-Packard in 2007. [9]
On March 14, 2006, TeleVideo, Inc. filed a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. [10] [11]
After more than 35 years in business and with millions of terminals sold worldwide, TeleVideo discontinued the manufacturing and sales of all terminal products as of September 30, 2011. [12]
