Alloy Computer Products is an Australian manufacturer of information technology

Information technology

Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

 products based near Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

. As of 2007, the company currently markets networking and VoIP products. The company was originally based in Framingham, Massachusetts

Framingham, Massachusetts

Framingham is a New England town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 68,318 as of the United States 2010 Census. -History:...

 and by 1990 was part of the Fortune 500. At one point Alloy was a major producer of QIC

Quarter Inch Cartridge

Quarter inch cartridge tape is a magnetic tape data storage format introduced by 3M in 1972, with derivatives still in use as of 2009. QIC comes in a rugged enclosed package of aluminum and plastic that holds two tape reels driven by a single belt in direct contact with the tape. The tape was...

 format tape drive

Tape drive

A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and performs digital recording, writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and long archival stability.A tape drive provides...

s and other computer peripherals. In the mid 90's the company was no longer profitable. It filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. and the Australian subsidiary was bought out by the management team from the Australian division. It no longer operates as a manufacturer or as an American corporation.

Alloy Computer Products, Inc., was founded in 1979. Alloy Computer Products developed and marketed multi-user computer systems for the emerging microcomputer marketplace. Later Alloy became involved in backup systems, tape drives and printing accelerator hardware. In 1985 Alloy developed the DOS-73

3b1

The 3B1 was a Unix workstation computer originally developed by Convergent Technologies , and marketed by AT&T in the mid- to late-1980s...

 co-processor board for the AT&T Unix-PC, allowing AT&T's Unix based Unix-PC (aka the PC-7300

3b1

The 3B1 was a Unix workstation computer originally developed by Convergent Technologies , and marketed by AT&T in the mid- to late-1980s...

 and the 3B1

3b1

The 3B1 was a Unix workstation computer originally developed by Convergent Technologies , and marketed by AT&T in the mid- to late-1980s...

) to run MS-DOS based programs.

Alloy grew to $50 million in annual sales by 1986 and executed a successful IPO in June of that year. Alloy had an installed base of 150,000 users by the early 1990s, largely small businesses, comprising a relatively significant portion of the multi-user DOS marketplace. One DOS based computer was equipped with a multi-user/multi-tasking operating system called "386/MultiWare" which along with specialized hardware could provide serial connectivity to up to 20 dumb terminal clients. Each dumb terminal was connected to a session running up to 8 concurrent DOS virtual machines, all running on the host computer. If a problem arose with a single DOS virtual machine it could be rebooted without an effect on other terminals attached. Later "MultiNode" was introduced to meet client needs operating under the Novell network operating system allowing both Client/Server network connectivity as well as serial terminal users.

External links

• Corporate website.
• Buyout info.
• Scans of magazine advertisements from 1983 illustrating their then-current product line.
• http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NEW/is_1992_June_15/ai_12370599 http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8746341.html Alloy files for bankruptcy.
• http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NEW/is_1993_March_1/ai_13731142 Alloy Computer Products to market Micro Advice's JETstream! printer accelerator card
• http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?c=1164&st=1 AT&T Unix-PC system