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First Class Peripherals
Company typePrivate
First Class Systems (1989–1990)
IndustryComputer
FoundedOctober 1984; 40 years ago (1984-10) in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States
Founders
  • Jim Toreson
  • Clinton B. Teegardin
DefunctNovember 1990; 34 years ago (1990-11)
FateDissolution
Products
  • Peripherals
  • Systems
Number of employees
40 (1989)
ParentXebec Corporation (1984–1989)

First Class Peripherals, Inc., was an American computer hardware manufacturer active from 1984 to 1990. First Class was initially a mail-order subsidiary of Xebec Corporation that produced HDD subsystems for the Apple II, the Macintosh, and the IBM PC and compatibles. After Xebec dissolved in 1989, First Class was spun off and relocated to Santa Clara, California, where it briefly existed as a manufacturer of clones of IBM's PS/2 under the trade name First Class Systems. It went defunct in November 1990.

History

[edit]

First Class Peripherals was founded in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in October 1984.[1] It was formed as a subsidiary of Xebec Corporation, a computer hardware company based in Silicon Valley that was a top player in the hard disk drive and disk controller markets in the early 1980s.[1] Jim Toreson, the co-founder and chairman of Xebec, poached Clinton B. Teegardin, a 20-year veteran executive of IBM, to lead the company while also being named a vice president of Xebec.[1][2] The impetus for First Class' foundation was to dominate in the field of mail-order aftermarket computer hardware products, where rival disk drive manufacturers like Iomega had found commercial success.[1]

The company's first product was an external hard disk drive subsystem for the Apple II family (excluding the Apple IIc).[1][3] Called the Sider, it featured a 10-MB HDD manufactured by Xebec and was compatible with Apple DOS, ProDOS, Apple Pascal, and various distributions of CP/M for the Apple II.[4] It was capable of being daisy-chained to a second Sider to expand the total storage capacity of the Apple II system.[5] Introduced in December 1984,[1] the Sider received positive reviews in the technology press and was named inCider's product of the month for May 1985.[3][6][7] inCider praised its performance for its price bracket, although it had qualms about the drive's ability as a backup device.[8][9] By September 1985, First Class had introduced a version of the Sider for the IBM Personal Computer and its compatibles.[10] Unlike the Apple II version, the PC Sider received a mixed assessment by the press.[11] In November 1985, First Class introduced the Sider II, a successor to the Apple II version featuring a faster 20-MB HDD.[12] The Sider II was succeeded by the 40-MB D4 in 1988.[13]

By the end of 1985, First Class had relocated to Carson City, Nevada, to be closer to Xebec's primary manufacturing plant.[11][14] In 1987, it began to branch out from just HDD subsystems to various computer peripherals, starting with tape drives for Apple's Macintosh family of computers.[14][15] Its parent company Xebec was by this point in dire financial straits after its previously lucrative disk controller business began to crumble after it lost IBM as a customer.[14][16] In October 1988, Xebec signed a deal with Migent Software of Incline Village, Nevada, to remarket the latter's Pocket Modem as the First Class Travel Modem. This was part of a debt repayment deal; per a Nevada judgement, Migent owed $163,000 to Xebec, whom Migent hired as a contract manufacturer for the company's modems.[17][18]

Employment at First Class hovered at 40 in mid-1989. In July 1989, Xebec folded after filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy and having its assets liquidated. First Class Peripherals was spun off into a separate company, which continued to operate.[19] Toreson, the ex-principle of Xebec, was named First Class' chairman, relocating the company to Santa Clara, California. Over the summer of 1989, Toreson secured funding and technical assistance from Voxson [it] of Italy and Normerel of France to pivot from computer peripherals to complete computer systems. It was rebranded First Class Systems and focused exclusively on marketing clones of IBM's PS/2 family of personal computers, which used the proprietary Micro Channel architecture. Such clones were rare, especially by an American company.[20] In November 1989, First Class Systems made their market debut with the F20DX and the F16/SX, workalikes of the PS/2 Model 70 and the PS/2 Model 55 SX respectively.[21][22] First Class catered largely to pre-existing customers of PS/2s achieved modest sales by February 1990.[23][24] In April 1990, it introduced the 325i, another workalike of the PS/2 Model 70 increasing the clock speed from 20 MHz to 25 MHz.[22]

Despite First Class' insistence that the slow adoption rate of MCA was "like front-engine cars ... Nobody wanted one until industry leaders started producing them" and that systems based on MCA would eventually "prov[e] their worth",[25] the company dissolved in November 1990 when it was suspended from the Franchise Tax Board of California.[26]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Miranker, C. W. (January 27, 1985). "Firm plans to be 'L.L. Bean' of computer peripherals". San Francisco Examiner. p. D10 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ Staff writer (March 1985). "Xebec Corporation". Small Systems World. Vol. 13, no. 3. p. 14 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ a b Seymour, Jim (June 17, 1985). "Hard disk for Apple II introduced". Austin American-Statesman. p. D1 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ Field, Cynthia (April 29, 1985). "Small Unit With a Big Value". InfoWorld. Vol. 7, no. 17. IDG Publications. pp. 83–84 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ Albertson, C. (May 1985). "The Sider: More Bytes Per Buck for Your Apple II Plus and IIe". A+. Vol. 3, no. 5. Ziff-Davis. pp. 68–71 – via Gale.
  6. ^ Staff writer (May 1985). "Editors' Choice". inCider. Vol. 3, no. 5. CW Communications. p. 128 – via Gale.
  7. ^ Hall, Douglas E. (January 1986). "Inside the Sider". Byte. Vol. 11, no. 1. McGraw-Hill. pp. 319–322 – via the Internet Archive.
  8. ^ Doherty, W. C. (April 1985). "Hardware Reviews: The Sider". inCider. Vol. 3, no. 4. CW Communications. pp. 93–95 – via Gale.
  9. ^ O'Brien, Bill (September 1985). "Hard-Driving Disks". inCider. Vol. 3, no. 9. CW Communications. pp. 24–28 – via Gale.
  10. ^ Starfire, Brian (September 8, 1985). "Hard disks less costly". The Odessa American. p. 5E – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ a b Swearingern, Dan (October 1985). "First Class Peripheral's Sider". PC Products. Vol. 2, no. 10. Reed Business Information. pp. 71–73 – via Gale.
  12. ^ Field, Cynthia (November 25, 1985). "20-Megabyte Sider Upgrade Is Improvement on the Original". InfoWorld. Vol. 7, no. 47. IDG Publications. pp. 60–61 – via Google Books.
  13. ^ Rubin, Charles (July 1988). "The Dream Machine: Business". A+. Vol. 6, no. 7. Ziff-Davis. p. 28 et seq. – via Gale.
  14. ^ a b c Henderson, Mike (October 10, 1987). "Xebec hopes changes lure more business". Reno Gazette-Journal. p. 8B – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ Staff writer (December 12, 1988). "Manufacturers of tape-backup systems". PC Week. Vol. 5, no. 50. Ziff-Davis. pp. 111 et seq. – via Gale.
  16. ^ "Loss by Xebec Tied to I.B.M." The New York Times. August 18, 1987. p. D4. Archived from the original on May 24, 2015. ProQuest 426590639
  17. ^ Gold, Jim (October 6, 1988). "Retrenching Migent lets another firm market modem". Reno Gazette-Journal. p. 10B, 7B – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ^ Karon, Paul (October 10, 1988). "Migent streamlines in effort to attract private investors". PC Week. Vol. 5, no. 41. Ziff-Davis. p. 121 – via Gale.
  19. ^ Melton, Wayne (August 1, 1989). "Carson City's Xebec files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy". Reno Gazette-Journal. p. 8B, 5B – via Newspapers.com.
  20. ^ Parker, Rachel (October 30, 1989). "First Class Systems Places Bets on Micro Channel". InfoWorld. Vol. 11, no. 44. IDG Publications. p. 46 – via Google Books.
  21. ^ Parker, Rachel (November 13, 1989). "First Class Systems to Introduce PS/2 Compatible". InfoWorld. Vol. 11, no. 46. IDG Publications. p. 34 – via Google Books.
  22. ^ a b Staff writer (April 23, 1990). "Micro Channel Architecture PCs". PC Week. Vol. 7, no. 16. Ziff-Davis. p. 96 – via Gale.
  23. ^ Worthington, Paul (February 12, 1990). "MCA Takes Hold but IBM May Lose Its Grip". InfoWorld. Vol. 12, no. 7. IDG Publications. p. 50 – via Google Books.
  24. ^ Worthington, Paul (February 5, 1990). "MCA Market Is Increasing Steadily". InfoWorld. Vol. 12, no. 6. IDG Publications. p. 21 – via Google Books.
  25. ^ Caton, Michael; Kelley Damore (April 23, 1990). "MCA compatibles now rival IBM PS/2s". PC Week. Vol. 7, no. 16. Ziff-Davis. pp. 93 et seq. – via Gale.
  26. ^ "First Class Peripherals". OpenCorporates. n.d. Archived from the original on July 25, 2025.
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