How many of these 5 vanished PC brands do you actually remember?

The current PC landscape is dominated by a handful of powerful players, with few other recognizable brands, creating an incredibly competitive market. Some of the best desktop computer brands today are Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Apple. Alternative but still widely recognized brands include ASUS, Acer, and MSI. These companies make computers in many forms, with all-in-one desktop units and feature-rich mini PCs joining the ranks of traditional tower PCs as popular options over the years.

But these brands are not the only ones contributing to the evolution of personal computing. Today’s computers are faster, sleeker, and more efficient than the PCs of yesteryear, but the market has been shaped by decades of competition, innovation, and, in some cases, failure. Several defunct PC brands, such as Packard Bell and IBM, enjoyed success over the years, only to fade as personal computing needs changed.

Some brands that pushed the PC industry forward during its formative years have disappeared, but that doesn’t mean they’re completely forgotten. The influence of giants like Compaq and Gateway can still be seen in certain ways, while the cultural impact of a brand like Commodore continues to evoke nostalgia. Over time, technology companies tend to be acquired, transformed, or go out of business altogether. Let’s take a look at a few PC brands that helped shape the industry before disappearing from the market.

The company enjoyed success throughout the 1980s, but it was the Presario line of computers of the 1990s that defined Compaq’s peak years. With many models costing less than $1,500, the company sold more than 100,000 Presarios in the first 60 days after its launch in 1993. That represented some $500 million in sales that year alone. In 1994, Compaq overtook IBM as the world’s largest PC seller, and its revenue reached $20 billion in 1996.

Hoping to become a full-service technology company and compete at the enterprise level, Compaq used its soaring revenues to acquire several companies. This shift in focus has allowed brands like Dell to enter the budget PC market. A direct-to-consumer model was emerging, allowing PC buyers to avoid intermediaries like Circuit City and reducing Compaq’s reliance on these retail outlets for its sales. HP acquired Compaq for $25 billion in 2002 and retired the name in 2013 after more than a decade of use as a budget brand.

In fact, the idea of ​​businesses and consumers owning PCs was largely fueled by IBM. It launched the 5150 personal computer in 1981, and although other brands had developed personal computers before the 5150, the IBM name carried more weight. The company decided to build its PCs with commercially available components, making them more affordable for consumers but legally copyable by competitors. By the early 1980s, IBM had about 80% of the entire PC market.

But IBM’s design and manufacturing strategy contributed in part to its downfall in the PC market. Its PC became a model around which the entire industry was built, and competitors began to undercut IBM on price. Over the next decade, the company’s PC market share fell from 80% to just 20%. With its margins too thin to justify remaining in the market, IBM chose to stop manufacturing PCs. In 2005, the company sold its entire PC division to Lenovo for $1.75 billion.

But the Commodore 64 (C64) took this brand to its peak, with between 12.5 and 17 million C64 machines sold. To date, it is the best-selling desktop computer according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The C64’s initial retail price of $595 was lower than that of much of the competition and attractive to home users because it could connect to a TV and run games as well as other software.

But Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore, proved to be a difficult leader. He clashed with the company’s board of directors, and his aggressive style strained relationships with suppliers and dealers. Tramiel was forced out in 1984, even though his experience proved irreplaceable at Commodore. The company went through several managers over the next decade and declared bankruptcy in 1994 after posting a $366 million loss in 1993. The Commodore name changed hands several times afterward, but it was abandoned as a computer company.

Alagem and his partners launched Packard Bell Electronics in 1986, and the company’s first computers began hitting store shelves in 1987. Packard Bell went directly to mass-market retailers, selling its budget computers through outlets like Sears and Walmart. Their target consumer was early PC buyers. By the mid-1990s, Packard Bell had nearly 13% of the U.S. PC market and was briefly the best-selling PC brand in the country.

Some of today’s most reliable budget computers come from brands like Dell and Acer, but if Packard Bell still existed, it probably wouldn’t be one of them. Its reputation for PC quality was poor, and competitors soon began to match its prices through direct-to-consumer models. The company withdrew from the American market in 2000, and Acer purchased the Packard Bell brand in 2008 for $46 million.

While several PC brands of the era were driven out of business by direct-to-consumer models, Gateway took this model even further by selling its computers to consumers by mail. This allowed the company to keep costs low and allowed buyers to customize their PC before purchasing it. By 1997, Gateway had reached sales of nearly $6.3 billion, and by 2004, it had a 25 percent share of the retail PC market, behind HP and Dell.

Today, the Gateway name survives under Acer ownership, with Acer completing the acquisition in 2007 for $710 million. That’s a fraction of what Gateway was worth at its peak. Its decline began with the growing popularity of laptops. As the desktop PC market continued to decline, Gateway never managed to achieve a turnaround and became another dying PC brand.