Adaptec

In the world of personal computing, speed isn't just about the processor; it's about how quickly data moves. In 1981, Larry Boucher, along with Wayne Higashi and Bernard Nieman, recognized a critical bottleneck: the sluggish pace of data transfer between computers and peripherals like disk drives. Boucher, who had previously worked at IBM and helped create the Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) protocol, founded Adaptec to solve this problem. Adaptec quickly became a leader by developing host bus adapters that dramatically sped up I/O, with their SCSI-based products becoming an industry standard. This focus on enabling faster communication between computers and devices like hard drives, scanners, and tape drives was fundamental to the PC revolution. The company went public in 1986, cementing its position as a key player in the growing tech landscape. By the early 1990s, sales of SCSI-related devices accounted for 70 percent of the company's revenue as the need for faster data flow became essential for increasingly powerful computers. The company's journey culminated in 2010 when its core RAID storage business was acquired by PMC-Sierra for approximately $34 million. This event marked the end of Adaptec as an independent firm, though the brand and its technology lived on through a series of subsequent acquisitions by Microsemi and later, Microchip Technology.