Compaq Failure

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Tammara Freimark

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Aug 3, 2024, 6:08:09 PM8/3/24

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Chances are high that when you consider the names that currently rule the personal computer industry, you immediately think of Microsoft, HP, Apple, and Dell. Two decades ago, that list would have looked a little different, and Compaq might have been your first choice when we asked this question.

Compaq Computer Corporation, a long-gone name in the computer industry, was founded in 1982 by a group of former Texas Instruments executives, with the goal of producing IBM-compatible computers. Five years after its establishment, in 1987, Compaq achieved over $1 billion in revenue, making it the youngest company ever to be listed on the Fortune 500. Despite its success, Compaq was significant because it was among the first companies to challenge IBM's dominant position in the computing industry seriously. It really established itself as the world's leading provider of PC-compatible computers, when people bought a Compaq PC they were getting a highly regarded machine which would last for years (David Beren (2023)).

This company was once the symbol of success and innovation in the computer world. But its remarkable journey ultimately ended in failure. Formerly the world's biggest provider of personal computer systems, Compaq existed independently until merging with Hewlett-Packard in 2002.

When International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) introduced its first personal computer (PC) in 1982, relatively new at the time, Compaq Computer Corporation created a turning point in the history of personal computing, which was the release of the Compaq Portable in 1983. Compaq Computer Corporation changed the industry by introducing one of the first computers that was compatible with IBM. The Compaq Portable was a ground-breaking device that revolutionized computing and established new benchmarks for functionality, portability, and compatibility (Melissa Lee, C.P.A. (2016)). It is best known as one of the ancestors of today's laptops.

Compaq had to do "reversed engineering" to become one of the best producers of IBM compatibles. In contrast to traditional engineering, which aims to create new methods of doing things, reverse engineering attempts to replicate current technologies as closely as possible, defects and all. The majority of businesses in the clone industry just paid attention to the price. The engineers at Compaq adopted a different strategy, focusing on performance together with new features like portability and improved graphical displays (Mark Hall (2023)).

Being able to run all the same software as an IBM PC made the Portable a revolutionary device. In its first year, Compaq's Portable sold 53,000 units and brought approximately $111 million in revenue for Compaq, the highest by any first-year company in American history at the time. By 1993, it was America's top supplier of portable computers. It overtook IBM in 1995 to become the largest PC seller globally (Mark Hall (2023)).

During the late 90's Compaq Computer Corporation was facing serious competition in the personal computer markets with companies like IBM, Dell, Acer, Gateway, HP and more. They were also facing a general economic downturn which had a serious impact on Cpmpaq's stock value (Kirkcaldy A. (2022)). Compaq was struggling especially against Dell, as they were offering their computers at a lower cost than Compaq and as consumers are attracted to cheaper and better products, Dell was able to capture the computer market.

Compaq was more like a follower of IBM. But Dell who was also a follower of IBM had acquired the ability to offer higher quality products at decreasing cost by exploiting technology advancement leads to price setting capability. Here the dominant supplier sets the price to make a profit rather than the equilibrium between supply and demand, forcing rivals to accept lower prices for their products made at more expense. Consequently, there are fewer producers, which might result in a monopoly, duopoly, or oligopoly, which exactly happened to Compaq Computer Corporation. So success ultimately comes from being a leader. However, that does not always imply the first entry (Zaman, R. (2022-02)). So ultimately Compaq had to merge with HP in the early 2002's to surpass leader Dell Computer Corp (ASSOCIATED PRESS, 2001).

The challenges Compaq faced in the late 1990s and early 2000s, they could have overcome those by focusing on some main areas like they should have focused on strategies like innovation and compatibility. They could have thought about innovating a counter product by changing the technology core. They could have encouraged the next wave to expand as a destructive creative wave ((Zaman, R. (2023-02)).

As advancement of the technology core opens up the possibility for additional new features. For adding new features consumers wtop would rise up as they are always after new features at a lower price, for which they needed to focus on their cost efficiency, simplifying processes and cutting costs to stay competitive in a market where consumers are picky about prices. They also needed to create a positive externality effect, for example: on smartphones, the photo-sharing function has produced a Positive Externality Effect (Zaman, R. (2022-03).

I assume that both CPU and RAM must be OK since there's reaction from BIOS, but I'm really not familiar with Compaq hardware so I can be wrong as well. I have heard that some models (including mine) was equipped with a kind of "hybrid" BIOS, where some diagnostic software was invoked from a hidden partition on a hard drive. My HDD seems to be working and there's a small 3MB OEM type partition before the "big" one. But I also read that it's not obligatory to boot the OS.

Usually what I do is take out the motherboard and I clean it and check it over for any signs of burnt components or scratched traces. Front and back. Check all connectors bent pins too. Check the voltage on the power supply as well. It is a bit of work for something that might not be there, but its another variable we can eliminate.

The motherboard looks good and clean, there have been two big flux residues, one on the WT/WB (write through, writa back?) jumper and the other on the cylindrical crystal oscillator. I cleaned them up with some isopropyl alcohol, but apart from that I can't really spot anything suspicious. It looks like this:

As I wrote before, I soldered in a CR-2032 battery in place of the old battery clips (that's everything what was left of the old one - somebody tear it off leaving the clips that are normally welded to the battery). It's a 3V one, but I read in the motherboard's specs, that if you're gonna attach an external one, it should be a 4,5V 600mA battery. I'm a little bit confused now but I have never seen a 4,5V button cell...

Does anybody have a clue where's the NVRAM located on this board? I'm asking, because if it's this little 4 pin Microchip chip marked 593C (anything else seems to be either 74 series logic or big custom asics), it's not getting any power (and it should bem right?) even if the battery is soldered in... Here's it's photo, it's labeled U38:

Ok, I figured one thing out - NVRAM is contained in one big VLSI chip (U40, VL82C114FC) and what do you know, there's no power on pin 81 (where it should be). That gives me a rough idead of what could it be... The CR2032 battery is perfectly fine, as the chip accepts everything from 2,4 to 5 Volts, so that's why you can either install a 3V coin battery or an external 4,5V one.

The dreadful error 102 can mean basically anything from flat battery to DMA controller or timer failure. Well, I wasted a lot of time thinking what can it be, because I assumed, that those "new" coin cells don't leak. Remember kids, assumption is a mother of all f*ups and that was also my case. Anyway, my last post was a breakthrough - I started to fiddle around with my multimeter checking continuity from the pin 81 of U40 onwards. Finally I found a trace which wasn't really looking suspicious but the multimeter didn't beep. Look at the picture below (it's after some cleaning; now you should be able to spot it):

Can you see it? Well that's how it looked after some scrubbing with some very fine sandpaper:

You can clearly see that the trace is broken whete the "L" is. A quick soldering job should do the trick - I just bridged the trace with some very thin wire:

Next I connected an external 3xAAA battery pack (I desoldered the internal coin cell because I couldn't see all the traces) and bingo!

And here she is, in all her glory (well... stripped and with some errors, but it works!):

Good find! I recall a time when a friend of mine, who is not a solder-slinger, gave me one of his expensive-at-the-time video cards which he tried to mod by adding a bunch of custom heat-sinks, which he ruined by slipping with the screwdriver and cutting some traces, as it turned out. I had to dismantle a small piece of telephone wire, and use just the tiniest strands to bridge each trace, the same way you did.

Please, I have a similar old beauty, a Compaq Prolinea 4/66, which User Manual is NON-EXISTENT in the whole world wide web, including of all the possible other parallel universes! (Not to be confused with the Prolinea 466 [without slash], which goes under a different manual which is findable online).