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Wilstron, also based in China, makes up the remainder of Dell’s outsourced laptops. A fascinating little tidbit is that Wilstron, along with Flextronics International Limited and Celestica, also manufactures the XBox 360 for Microsoft. You hear many people argue about which of those laptops is better than the other. Production continued until March 2013 but since then, they no longer sell any systems; and support for their products is provided by Flextronics. An anonymous US intelligence officer had stated to Reuters in 2013 that a decade earlier the US secretly created a company reselling laptops from Tadpole Computer to Asian governments. Download the latest drivers, software, firmware, and diagnostics for your HP laptops from the official HP Support website.

Tadpole Computer was a manufacturer of rugged, military specification, UNIXworkstations, thin client laptops and lightweight servers.

History[edit]

Tadpole was founded in 1994^[1] and originally based in Cambridge, England, then for a time in Cupertino, California.^[2]

In 1998, Tadpole acquired RDI Computer Corporation of Carlsbad, California,^[3] who produced the competing Britelite and Powerlite portable SPARC-based systems, for $6 million.^[4]

Tadpole was later acquired by defense contractor General Dynamics, in April 2005.^[5]

Production continued until March 2013 but since then, they no longer sell any systems; and support for their products is provided by Flextronics.

An anonymous US intelligence officer had stated to Reuters in 2013 that a decade earlier the US secretly created a company reselling laptops from Tadpole Computer to Asian governments. The reseller added secret software that allowed intelligence analysts to access the machines remotely.^[6]

Products[edit]

Tadpole laptops used a variety of architectures, such as SPARC, Alpha, PowerPC and x86.^[1] Although very expensive, these classic Tadpoles won favour as a method to show corporation's proprietary software (IBM/HP/DEC) on a self-contained portable device on a client site in the days before remote connectivity.^{[citation needed]}

SPARC[edit]

The original SPARCbook 1^[7] was introduced in 1992 with 8–32 MB RAM and a 25 MHz processor.^[8][9] It was followed by several further SPARCbooks, Ultrabooks - and the Voyager IIi.^[10][11] These all ran the SunOS or Solaris operating systems.^{[12][13][14][15]} In 2004, Tadpole released the Viper laptop.^[16]

The SPARCLE was based on an 500-600 MHz UltraSPARC IIe or 1 GHz UltraSPARC IIIi.^[17]

DEC Alpha[edit]

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An Alpha-based laptop, the ALPHAbook 1, was announced on 4 December 1995 and became available in 1996. The Alphabook 1 was manufactured in Cambridge, England. It used an Alpha 21066A microprocessor specified for a maximum clock frequency of 233 MHz. The laptop used the OpenVMS operating system.^[18][19]

IBM PowerPC[edit]

A PowerPC-based laptop was also produced - the IBM RISC System/6000 N40 Notebook Workstation, powered by a 50 MHz PowerPC 601 and with between 16 and 64MB RAM - and designed to run IBM AIX.^[20][21]

x86[edit]

Tadpole also produced a range of x86-based notebook computers, including the Tadpole P1000, and the TALIN laptops with SUSE Linux, or optionally Microsoft Windows.^[22]

See also[edit]

• Toughbook, Panasonic's rugged portable computers

External links[edit]

• www.tadpolecomputer.com on the Internet Archive
• www.computinghistory.org.uk/sec/32293/Tadpole-Computer/ Tadpole products in the collection of the Museum of Computing History in Cambridge.

References[edit]

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1. ^ ^ab'Tadpole Eyes Athlon 64, Multiprocessor Sparc Notebooks - ExtremeTech'. www.extremetech.com. Retrieved 2020-04-20.
2. ^'Tadpole Launches Sleek UltraSPARC® Technology Powered Notebook'. 2003-02-18. Archived from the original on 2003-02-18. Retrieved 2020-04-20.
3. ^'Tadpole Technology: Industry news'(PDF). 2020-04-20. Archived(PDF) from the original on 2020-04-20. Retrieved 2020-04-20.
4. ^'Tadpole Technology purchases major competitor RDI Computer Corporation - SunWorld - August 1998'. sunsite.uakom.sk. Retrieved 2020-04-20.
5. ^'Form 10-K, General Dynamics Corporation'. www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2020-04-19.
6. ^'Strong ties bind spy agencies and Silicon Valley'. Reuters. 2013-07-04. Retrieved 2020-04-20.
7. ^Chronology of Workstation Computers (1991-1992)Archived April 2, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
8. ^Sub-$6,000 Sparc Notebook Announced, By Martin Marshall, InfoWorld, 27 May 1991, Page 32
9. ^Advert: Meet the Notebook that Breaks the Mold: SPARCbook 1: Tadpole, Computerworld, 23 Mar 1992, Page 37
10. ^Tadpole release Sparc notebooks, By Yvonne L. Lee, InfoWorld, 21 Feb 1994, Page 33, ...The $10,950 SparcBook 3....The $7,500 SparcBook 3LC...
11. ^SPARC notebook manufacturer promises desktop performance, by Michael Fitzgerald, Computerworld, 28 Feb 1994, Page 41, ...Tadpole Technology Inc. in Austin, Texas, announced its third SPARC notebook....The $10,950 SPARCbook 3 uses Texas insstruments, Inc.'s 50-MHz MicroSPARC processor...
12. ^'Tadpole SPARCbook 3', computinghistory.org.uk
13. ^SPARCbook 3000ST - The coolest 90s laptop, March 14, 2019 , triosdevelopers.com
14. ^Table 11-1: Identifying Different SPARC CPUs, Page 256, Sun Performance and Tuning: Java and the Internet, By Adrian Cockcroft, Richard Pettit, Sun Microsystems, ...System(Kernel Architecture): Tadpole SPARCbook 1 (sun4m) / CPU Mhz: 25 / CPU Type: Cypress 601...System(Kernel Architecture): Tadpole SPARCbook 2 (sun4m) / CPU Mhz: 40 / CPU Type: Fujitsu MB86903...System(Kernel Architecture): Tadpole SPARCbook 3 (sun4m) / CPU Mhz: 85-110 / CPU Type: microSPARC II...
15. ^Sparc-based notebook ready to debut: Tadpole system uses Cypress processor, runs Solaris operating system, By Cate Corcoran, InfoWorld Dec 28, 1992 - Jan 4, 1993, Page 23
16. ^'Tadpole leaps to Sparc portable workstation'. CNET. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
17. ^'Tadpole'. 2004-06-04. Archived from the original on 2004-06-04. Retrieved 2020-04-21.
18. ^'Tadpole Technology announces the ALPHAbook 1, the world's most powerful notebook computer'. Business Wire. December 3, 1995. Retrieved September 2, 2008.
19. ^HP OpenVMS Systems Documentation Retrieved September 15, 2011.
20. ^'IBM RISC System/6000 N40 Notebook Workstation', March 8, 1994, Announcement Number: 194-062
21. ^'RS/6000 Notebook 860'(PDF).
22. ^Tadpole boosts power in Pentium-, Sparc-based notebooks, By Yvonne L. Lee, InfoWorld, 24 Jul 1995, Page 45, ...The two new notebooks, shipping now, include the SparcBook 3GX...and the Tadpole P1300, the first 133-MHz Pentium-based notebook...A Pentium notebook with 8MB of RAM and a 340MB hard disk cost $6,995...

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