Compaq Memorabilia Collector Guide

Compaq’s history, as it matters to collectors

Compaq Computer Corporation was formed in February 1982 by Rod Canion, James Harris and William Murto, three senior engineers from Texas Instruments. According to the Handbook of Texas, they sketched their first design, an IBM-compatible PC small enough to be transportable, on a placemat at a House of Pies on Westheimer Road in Houston. Venture capitalist Ben Rosen invested $2.5 million and became the company’s first chairman.

The Compaq Portable, introduced in 1983, was advertised as the first 100% IBM PC-compatible computer. Compaq licensed MS-DOS from Microsoft and legally reverse-engineered IBM’s BIOS, so the Portable could run the same software as the IBM PC. With the Portable’s success, Compaq sold 53,000 units for more than $111 million in 1983, its first year of operation. It began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1985, and in 1986 became the first company to reach the Fortune 500 in its fourth year. By 1994 it had passed IBM as the world’s largest PC manufacturer.

Later acquisitions brought other well-known computing names under Compaq ownership. Compaq merged with Tandem Computers in August 1997 and completed its acquisition of Digital Equipment Corporation in June 1998 for an aggregate purchase price of $9.1 billion. DEC had dominated the minicomputer market and brought with it AltaVista, among the first internet search engines; in January 1999 Compaq announced the formation of the AltaVista Company as a wholly owned subsidiary. On May 3, 2002, Hewlett-Packard acquired all of Compaq’s outstanding stock for total consideration of approximately $24.2 billion.

Why Compaq items are collected

The Compaq Portable helped launch the PC-compatible market. The Computer History Museum notes that its success inspired many other early IBM-compatible computers, and that the market Compaq launched reached an 83 percent share of the personal computer market by 1996. That makes an early Portable a key object for anyone collecting the history of the PC clone.

Compaq also belongs to Texas business history. The Handbook of Texas calls it the first highly visible high-technology company founded and run from Texas, and the company’s advertising used that identity: one advertisement that ran in 1984 and 1985 showed a Compaq portable with hay, a cowboy hat, rope and a red bandana, with a “Native Houstonian” sticker on its side.

What collectors find

The Computer History Museum’s own Compaq holdings are a useful map of the categories, because they cover hardware, accessories, advertising, event material and press photography.

• Compaq Portable computers: the museum holds a 1983 example with an integral 8-inch-diagonal monitor and two 5-inch diskette drives, catalogued with its brown nylon zip-up carrying case
• Original carrying cases: it also holds a 1982 Compaq vinyl zipper case, described as the case for one of the very first portable computers off the assembly line
• Advertising and promotional prints: pieces given by Hewlett-Packard cover the Compaq Plus, Portable 286, Portable II and Portable III, dated 1984 to 1987, along with a 1986 piece headed “How Compaq made the Fortune 500 faster than any other company in history”
• Buttons and small promotional pieces: a button whose front reads “COMPAQ” and “Grand Slam Cup”
• Publicity photographs: press images of Deskpro, LTE, SLT/286 and Portable models, Compaq’s COMDEX 1985 display and its Houston headquarters, held in the museum’s PC Week Art Department photograph collection

Before you buy old Compaq hardware

Treat any Compaq computer as untested electronics until the seller shows otherwise. At Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, conservators opened a GRiD Compass laptop before powering it up and found a power-supply electrolytic capacitor bulging and close to bursting. The liquid in those capacitors is corrosive, and the same team removed a soldered backup battery that had not yet leaked, because leakage was “only a matter of time.” The museum framed the work as a case study in preservation concerns for early portable computers.

• Exact model: confirm whether it is an original Portable, a Compaq Plus, a Portable 286, Portable II or Portable III, or a later machine, using photos of the badge and serial label
• Power history: ask whether the seller powered it on, how recently, and whether the power supply has been serviced; avoid plugging in an untested machine yourself
• Capacitors: look in internal photos for bulging, cracked or leaking electrolytic capacitors, especially in the power supply
• Batteries: check for any internal backup battery and for residue or corrosion around it
• Display and drives: on portables, confirm the built-in monitor shows a stable image and that each diskette drive reads a disk
• Completeness: note whether the carrying case, original disks and paperwork are present, and price a bare machine accordingly
• Safety: treat the power supply and built-in monitor as high-voltage parts and leave internal work to an experienced restorer

Checking advertising, buttons and logo pieces

Paper and promotional items need a different kind of scrutiny. Compaq itself reissued old artwork: the Computer History Museum holds a February 16, 2002 commemorative reissue of the “Native Houstonian” advertisement that originally ran in 1984 and 1985. A print can carry 1980s artwork and still be much younger, so a design’s date is not proof of a print’s date.

The Compaq name also outlived the independent company. HP’s quarterly report for the period ended July 31, 2002 described plans for continued use of the Compaq brand within a portion of its product portfolio, and its home PC line included the Presario series. A Compaq logo alone does not date an item before May 2002. HP-era Compaq pieces are part of the story, but a listing should describe them as such.

• Look for print dates, copyright lines, printer marks or reissue wording on advertisements and promotional prints
• Photograph the backs and edges of buttons, pins and other small logo pieces, where markings and wear are easiest to judge
• Treat provenance stories, such as former employee ownership, as useful context only when documents or photographs support them
• Describe condition plainly: folds, tears, fading, pinholes, tape and stains on paper; scratches and corrosion on metal

Where to find Compaq memorabilia now

Compaq stopped operating as a separate company by 2003, so original pieces come from the secondary market. The Compaq company page on I ♥ Capitalism tracks live resale listings for Compaq memorabilia, including advertising, paper and promotional items, and links each one to the marketplace selling it. The feed concentrates on memorabilia rather than the computers themselves, so hardware buyers should also search vintage-computing sellers directly. Inventory changes whenever sellers add or remove an item.