My hometown gave birth to it's own Computer Company..... until it was assimilated by another

In 1982, 

A Canadian Company was founded

While most Computer Companies are usually started in either the

UNITED STATES

or 

somewhere in places like CHINA, TAIWAN, JAPAN, etc.,

CANADA usually doesn't have a Computer Components Company to begin with....

But they did exist and GRAVIS is no exception......

Unless you count ATI which arguable is more successful as they lasted longer.

But ATI was from MARKHAM, ONTARIO.

This building is now owned by AMD.

GRAVIS on the other hand is from.....

Well....

It was in BURNABY, BC

....

So.....

More like it was a VANCOUVER based COMPANY due to being somewhere in the BOUNDARY area separating the municipalities.

GRAVIS was just your ordinary PERIPHERALS manufacturer that just manufactured COMPUTER PERIPHERALS to use with your PC(and clones.)

One of their very first products they made was a JOYSTICK

Yeah, no big deal.

It's a JOYSTICK that connects to your PC's GAMEPORT and lets you play games such as 

..... whatever was available for the PC circa 1985 and beyond.

But this JOYSTICK was constructed to be very DURABLE but affordable as CHEAP joysticks from NO-NAME or DISCOUNTED brands tend to break easily 

And the better constructed PC JOYSTICKS were far more expensive.

In the later years, GRAVIS would become more well known for two more products released in it's lifetime:

The GRAVIS GAMEPAD

&

The GRAVIS ULTRASOUND Sound Card.

The GRAVIS GAMEPAD was meant to provide a CONSOLE-LIKE experience playing your DOS games with a CONTROLLER that looks very similar to an SNES controller

And this makes all the more sense since some games on the PC were starting to enter the route of PLATFORMERS,

Especially those from APOGEE SOFTWARE

CRYSTAL CAVES (1991)

DUKE NUKEM (1991)

COMMANDER KEEN 4 GOODBYE GALAXY(1991)

COSMO'S COSMIC ADVENTURE(1992)

HOCUS POCUS(1994)

But also from EPIC games(originally EPIC MEGAGAMES)

JILL OF THE JUNGLE(1992)

JAZZ JACKRABBIT(1994)

Speaking about JAZZ JACKRABBIT, I've heard and read that the GRAVIS GAMEPAD was the gamepad of choice to play JAZZ on your DOS computer back in the day.... or at least that's what the shareware suggests

Though the GRAVIS GAMEPAD has somewhat of a mixed reception amongst gamers.

For one, it's solidly built but the rubber domes in between the PCB and the button plastic feel a little off compared to the other controllers available.

Also, the controller has no START button to pause the game which a lot of controllers like the SNES and GENESIS controllers already have.

Most gamers at the time would rather play their DOS games using the keyboard.

And even if they want to use an external controller, they'd rather want to use a JOYSTICK.

DOUBLY SO if it's a MICROSOFT SIDEWINDER like this guy below

As for the GRAVIS ULTRASOUND,

That one is also a mixed bag.

I'll have to embed this LGR video to give you readers the gist of what are the good and the bad of this soundcard

Nonetheless, despite the shortcomings and the increased competition and the anti-competitive behavior of CREATIVE LABS to dominate the 90s soundcard market all while licensing their tech to others like TURTLE BEACH,

GRAVIS remained popular with enthusiasts, especially in the demo scene market.

And it gave rise to AFTERMARKET cards like the ARGUS

and some also add ULTRASOUND capabilities in one card like the ORPHEUS 2 from 2023

In the later years, GRAVIS would suffer a laundry list of financial problems and by 1997, they were assimilated by the American KENSINGTON COMPUTER PRODUCTS GROUP....

(I did hear from a BEST BUY employee that KENSINGTON was bought by HP in the later years but I could refute that.)

But that didn't stop CLINT BASINGER of LGR from receiving his own USB GRAVIS GAMEPAD PRO for his 15th Birthday in DECEBER 2001 even though by that point, the controllers were now KENSINGTON branded.

"I also got a USB GRAVIS GAMEPAD PRO.

Now that was a good day."

Like I said, ATI would stick around far longer as they found greater success in the GPU market what with their RADEON series of GPUs introduced in 2000.

ATI would last much longer until 2006 when they were bought outright by the American ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES..... or

for short.....

but they still used the ATI name until 2010 when AMD retired the ATI brand and assimilated RADEON into the AMD umbrella.

Although AMD Struggled throughout the 2010s, they eventually bounced back with RYZEN in 2017.

And suddenly, AMD become the preferred for many an enthusiast when it comes to CPUs, especially in the wake of INTEL's CPU problems in 2024 after the OVER-VOLTAGE debacle and the deliberate underclocks of the 15th GEN Core ULTRA CPUS to avoid another voltage problem.

As for GPUs, that up for you to decide especially in these current market conditions as well as what your needs are for said GPU.

I have more blogposts in the works but they aren't ready for primetime yet as they need more adjustments.

And others such as my WINDOWS XP retrospective are complete but they won't be posted until a certain date due to ANNIVERSARY reasons to make it all the more fitting.

So.....

I decided to do this post as to keep the blog active.

"DUDE, YOU'RE GETTING A DELL, NOT A MEDICAL LICENSE!"-Why I admire MICHAEL DELL's career turn in the mid-1980s

We all know certain Computer Companies begin

IN A GARAGE.

HEWLETT PACKARD GARAGE

Apple Garage where the APPLE I was assembled

Right?

Not all of them.

Some began as a multi-collaboration like a majority of 

TAIWANESE MOTHERBOARD COMPANIES like

ASUS, ACER, GIGABYTE, etc.

While others begin at a COLLEGE DORM ROOM

That's right.

That's how the Computer Company DELL got it's start.

You see, MICHEAL DELL, 

Was studying in PRE-MED at the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS per his parents' wishes.

MICHAEL DELL's aspirations were in the BUSINESS SECTOR in a similar path his late mother LORRAINE DELL took as she was a stockbroker

However, DELL's mother LORRAINE

And his father ALEXANDER

They both wanted MICHAEL to study PRE-MED and become a DOCTOR.

So to appease his parents, he enrolled as a PRE-MED student at the 

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS at AUSTIN in the early 1980s.

But he wasn't liking his studies at all.

So, in his spare time when not taking notes or taking tests,

He set up a PC-Upgrade Business at his COLLEGE DORM where he took orders from his fellow students(and others in the AUSTIN, TEXAS area).

And he made a WISE CHOICE to choose the PC ARCHITECTURE

As that made UPGRADE KITS all the more accessible due to the PC's 

OFF-THE-SHELF approach with it's expansion slots

And it was not just the IBM PCs but also the clones too.

All from room 2713 of his dorm room

at DOBIE CENTER.

By January 1984, MICHAEL recognized that selling PCs directly to consumers would cut down costs compared to traditional retailers.

So he dropped out of UNIVERSITY, much to his parents CHAGRIN,

Applied for a vendor's license to bid on GOVERNMENT COMPUTER CONTRACTS, won those contracts easily due to him having zero retail store overhead, 

And the rest types for itself....

He registered the name PCs LIMITED, though eventually changed it to his family name 

One of his first computers to sell through his business was the TURBO PC

So, how did DELL's business work?

It was through direct sales. AKA BUILD-TO-ORDER.

All the customer had to do was to call the company to make the order through phone

Then after the order was made, the Company would send the order to manufacturing to assemble the computer with the CUSTOMER's exact specifications

Another strategy was JUST-IN-TIME for the SUPPLY CHAINS where DELL worked with LOCAL COMPONENT SUPPLIERS to get the parts delivered rapidly to the manufacturing facilities.

This ensured that DELL would collect the money from the consumer which would then be paid over to the suppliers.

After the computer's finished assembly, they're delivered to the Customer

This strategy is to allow the computers to be sold to the consumer at a much lower price while at the same time, also prevents the building up of unsold inventory which can be a problem for other companies.

In the later years, DELL emerged as one of the largest manufacturers of Computers that are used by many people today.

Not my Dell Dimension.

The one above belonged to BILLY COORE of THE NOSTALGIA MALL

My family, when it comes to LAPTOPS, is primarily a DELL family.

No lie.

Here's my DAD using his DELL XPS laptop while my previous Cat PEACH tries to use the hot air from the cooling fans to lull herself to sleep.

I don't have photos of my mom using her Dell Inspiron Laptop but I do have this photo of me from 2011 using her DELL LAPTOP during a vacation

Later on in 2022,
I was seriously considering getting a DELL ALIENWARE AURORA R11 desktop

to replace my MSI LAPTOP for the tail end of my COLLEGE STUDIES in 2022 but at the time, I couldn't justify it's price, nor the reviews so I instead decided to Build my own machines.

But on July 14 2025, I did buy a DELL INSPIRON RYZEN 7 LAPTOP

That laptop you see in the photo above is what I use to type these blogposts.

I guess parts of this blogpost don't really give you an idea about why I like MICHAEL DELL's career turn from being a MEDICAL STUDENT to a COMPUTER MANUFACTURER.....

But hey, I like inspiration stories.