Fatal Board · VIDEO ESSAY

The Tragic Fall of Mostek: The Texas Chipmaker That Invented RAM, Then Erased Itself

Subscribe to the channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb0ps9eCp0y6yP1Xg4sDDFw?sub_confirmation=1 Mostek invented the way computers remember, and then it erased itself. Founded in 1969 by engineers who walked out of Texas Instruments, Mostek built one of the first calculator-on-a-chip parts, then invented address multiplexing: the row and column strobe scheme that let a 4K dynamic memory fit into a 16-pin package and became the world standard for talking to memory. By the late 1970s, roughly three out of every four 16K DRAMs sold anywhere on earth came out of a plant in Carrollton, Texas. In 1979, United Technologies bought the company for about $345 million. Six years later it was sold to Thomson for roughly $71 million, thousands of jobs in North Texas were gone, and the American memory industry was finished. This is the whole story: the pin problem, the standards fight against Intel, the Hewlett-Packard quality report that ended an era, the 64K generation that never arrived, the price collapse, and the diaspora that went on to fund Compaq and build the Silicon Prairie. Sources Mostek Corporation, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostek MOS Dynamic RAM Competes with Magnetic Core Memory on Price, Computer History Museum, The Silicon Engine https://www.computerhistory.org/siliconengine/mos-dynamic-ram-competes-with-magnetic-core-memory-on-price/ Chip Hall of Fame: Mostek MK4096 4-Kilobit DRAM, IEEE Spectrum https://spectrum.ieee.org/chip-hall-of-fame-mostek-mk4096-4-kilobit-dram Mostek Corporation, Handbook of Texas, Texas State Historical Association https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/mostek-corporation Semiconductor industry oral history collection, Computer History Museum https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/ Oral History of Robert Proebsting, Computer History Museum Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age, Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson The New York Times, business coverage of United Technologies and Mostek, 1979 to 1985 Electronics magazine, DRAM market share and pricing reports, 1976 to 1985 Dataquest semiconductor market share estimates, 1978 to 1986 You can contact me at: thefatalboard@proton.me This channel is made by an enthusiast who loves business and technology history — nothing more. All videos are for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflect my personal views and interpretations. I research each story carefully using publicly available sources, but errors or omissions can happen. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice, and this channel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company mentioned.