The Secret History of Microsoft Hardware

"Microsoft is not a hardware company." How many times have you heard this or read this? I'm guessing more than once. It's a simple lie we keep telling ourselves despite the underlying truth: Microsoft has been designing and selling hardware products for 32 out of its 37 years in business. And hardware has been a consistently successful venture too, even in the early days. (Little-known fact: Between 1983 and 1986, sales of Microsoft mice (in units shipped) matched those of the company's software products!)

Over the years, Microsoft's portfolio of hardware expanded from a handful of mice and keyboards to include areas as diverse as game controllers, webcams, routers, cordless phones, speakers, MP3 players, cell phones, game consoles, and much more. And, as of late, Microsoft is now in the PC business, with its upcoming Surface tablet line.

This is what most people know when it comes to Microsoft and hardware. What you probably don't realize is that Microsoft created a rich line of computer expansion hardware throughout the 1980s—a line that began with the SoftCard for the Apple II in 1980 and ended nearly a decade later. Even Microsoft Hardware, a division founded in 1982, forgot its true heritage in a recent 30-year company retrospective.

I'm here to remedy that—to show you what both time and Microsoft forgot. Here are ten "lost" Microsoft hardware products that debuted in the 1980s. If I left out anything significant (yes, I know about its mouse line), please let me know in the comments area.

1. Microsoft SoftCard (1980)

The Microsoft SoftCard launched in 1980 as a plug-in card for the Apple II personal computer (1977). The card contained a Zilog Z80 CPU that allowed the Apple II to run the popular CP/M disk operating system and software written to work with it. (The Z80-CP/M platform was the closest thing to a Wintel-like standard in PCs at the time.)

The SoftCard sold well and became Microsoft's most well-known hardware product until it introduced its mouse two years later. As a result, it's not a "lost" product, per se. However, it did mark the very beginning of Microsoft's involvement in hardware.

(Photo: Microsoft)

2. Microsoft RAMCard for Apple II (1980)

Microsoft produced the Apple II RAMCard as an accessory card for its Z80 SoftCard (seen in the previous slide). The RAMCard plugged into one of an Apple II's free slots and provided 16KB of additional system memory (brining the total to 56KB) for CP/M programs running on the SoftCard. Certain traditional Apple II programs like VisiCalc could also utilize the extra RAM if specifically programmed to do so.

(Photo: Microsoft)

3. Microsoft RAMCard for IBM PC (1982)

While we saw the Apple II RAMCard in the last slide, Microsoft's RAMCard for the IBM PC served a completely different purpose. When plugged into a PC, it served as both a general memory expansion and a solid state RAM disk. When coupled with Microsoft's RAMDrive software, the card emulated a traditional disk drive that operated at a much faster speed (50 times faster, according to the ad) due to its solid state nature. The RAMCard for IBM PC was available in sizes from 64KB to 256KB—not too bad at a time when the typical IBM PC floppy disk held 360KB.

(Photo: Microsoft)

4. Microsoft SystemCard (1983)

Microsoft extended its line of IBM PC upgrade boards in 1983, with the SystemCard, a multifunction ISA card that saved an IBM PC user's precious internal slots. With only one card, you could replace the functions of at least four separate plug-in cards and still have six slots free.

Like the RAMCard, the SystemCard contained 64KB to 256KB of RAM that could serve as a RAM disk. But it also included a parallel printer interface, a print spooler (which let you queue multiple print jobs to be executed as the printer became available), an RS232 serial port (with a terminal emulator program in ROM), and a real-time calendar/clock chip.

(Photo: Microsoft)

5. Microsoft Premium SoftCard IIe (1983)

In 1982, Apple released the Apple IIe (seen here), a major addition to its Apple II line of personal computers. A year later, Microsoft updated its popular SoftCard product to take advantage of improvements in the Apple IIe's hardware (such as double hi-res video mode, more RAM, and an 80-column card). The result was the Premium SoftCard IIe, which didn't have as much impact as its predecessor but still garnered respect in the Apple II community.

Microsoft also released a SoftCard product for the ill-fated Apple III personal computer, the SoftCard III, in 1982. Like the Apple II SoftCards, the SoftCard III allowed the Apple III to run CP/M software.

(Photos: Steven Stengel, Marc S. Ressi)

6. Microsoft PCjr Booster with Mouse (1984)

In 1984, Microsoft launched the PCjr Booster with Mouse, a sidecar expansion box (seen here attached to the right side of the PCjr base unit) that added 192KB of RAM and a Microsoft mouse interface an IBM PCjr system. As the product's name implies, it also included an actual Microsoft mouse to use with the expansion box. With the PCjr booster, an IBM PCjr would have 256KB of RAM, allowing it to use significantly more powerful programs than would otherwise run in the PCjr's limited 64KB memory.

(Photo: Microsoft)

7. Microsoft MacEnhancer (1985)

It may seem surprising to computer users of today, but Microsoft was a big supporter of the Macintosh platform throughout the 1980s. As a part of that support, Microsoft released a very useful expansion peripheral, the MacEnhancer, which plugged into a Mac's modem or printer port and added one IBM PC-compatible parallel port and two IBM PC-compatible serial ports. With the MacEnhancer and its custom software, Mac users could utilize many printers, modems, and accessories designed for the IBM PC.

(Photos: Alan Tuttle)

8. Microsoft InPort (1986)

In 1986, Microsoft announced a new mouse input interface called InPort. The interface specified a custom, Microsoft-designed integrated circuit (the InPort Graphics Input Chip) and a new, compact 9-pin connector (also seen upper left). Microsoft created the new interface as a way to free up system serial ports (commonly used with serial mice) and to create less expensive mice, since the Microsoft's InPort chip offloaded much of the interface's intelligence onto the PC end.

Microsoft soon released its own InPort interface card (upper right) and versions of its mice to utilize it, but what's even more interesting is that the company also made the chip and socket available for a minimal charge to other hardware vendors in an attempt to foster a standard. A few peripheral card and PC clone companies integrated the InPort interface into their products, but it never became a widely used standard. Instead, IBM's PS/2 mouse interface, introduced a year later, eventually fulfilled that role.

(Photos: RecycledGoods.com, InfoWorld, Ian Wilson, Microsoft)

9. Microsoft Mach 10 (1986)

Microsoft Windows 1.0 shipped in late 1985, and Microsoft found that a majority of typical IBM PCs in the hands of users were not powerful enough to run it smoothly. That led to the creation of the Mach 10 accelerator board, which nearly doubled the speed of IBM PC and PC XT computers with 4.77-MHz 8088 CPUs. The Mach 10 included a 9.54-MHz 8086 CPU and a Microsoft InPort mouse interface on one plug-in card. It provided an impressive increase in speed for original PC owners at a time when the next step up, an IBM PC AT, cost quite a bit of money.

(Photos: Microsoft, InfoWorld)

10. Microsoft Mach 20 Performance Enhancement System (1988)

Just like the Mach 10, Microsoft marketed its follow-up, the Mach 20, as a gateway to allow 8088-based PCs to run the latest versions of Microsoft software programs. In this case, contemporary reports cited Excel and Microsoft OS/2 (a graphical OS that vied to replace Windows at one point) as the reasons for needing such an upgrade.

The Mach 20 plugged into a standard IBM PC ISA slot and provided the host system with an 8-MHz 80286 CPU, a slot for an 80287 math co-processor, and an InPort mouse interface. Microsoft offered a Memory Plus option that plugged into the rear of the Mach 20 and held up to 3.5MB of RAM. It also offered a Disk Plus option that allowed older IBM PCs to utilize high density floppy drives.

The story of Microsoft hardware continues past 1988, but after the Mach 20, the company decided to focus mostly on input devices and other external accessories for PCs.

(Photo: Microsoft)