Hal Computer Systems
HAL Computer Systems was a Campbell, CA-based computer manufacturer.
It was started in 1990 by Andrew Heller, a principal designer of the original IBM POWER architecture. His idea was to build computers based on a RISC architecture for
the commercial market. When Fujitsu choose to fund the company, the SPARC architecture
was chosen. Since the designers believed that a 64 bit architecture was necessary for the
commercial workloads, HAL took the initiative in the definition of Version 9 of that architecture. By the end of 1993, Heller was pushed out of the company and HAL had become a fully owned
subsidiary of Fujitsu. The company produced multiple generations of computers based on their proprietary Sparc microprocessors.
Their microprocessors combined Out-of-order execution with mainframe-style reliability features.
Their SPARC64-I processor beat out Sun's UltraSPARC-I by a few months to be the first 64-bit Sparc
microprocessor to be produced. Most of the sales of the company went to the Japanese market.
Fujitsu closed the company in 2001.
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