Vendor lineage
Dolch (Kontron / Azonix lineage)
The rugged luggable the Sniffer lived in.
Dolch Computer Systems built the suitcase-format rugged portables that carried a generation of field engineering - and, above all, Network General's Sniffer analyzer, which shipped on Dolch PACs so routinely the Computer History Museum catalogs them as Sniffer platforms.
Founded 1987 in California by Volker Dolch; twice ranked first in rugged portables (VDC, 1999 and 2002); acquired by Kontron AG in February 2005, with the rugged mobile platform passing to Azonix in 2007. The hardware half of the packet-analysis story told in the Sniffer lineage profile.
Founding stories
Dolch Computer Systems
Volker Dolch built the machine the field actually needed: a suitcase you could check as luggage, open on a data-center floor, and trust with full-length expansion cards no laptop would ever take. The PAC-series luggables paired industrial build with commercial buses (EISA, VESA Local Bus, later PCI), which made them the natural home for the era's heaviest field software - and one tenant above all made the brand: Network General's Sniffer shipped on Dolch portables so routinely that the Computer History Museum catalogs PAC models simply as 'Sniffer platform'. For a generation of network engineers, the gray Dolch case WAS what a protocol analyzer looked like.
Founding year, founder, and fate per Wikipedia and the Centre for Computing History; the Sniffer-platform pairing per the Computer History Museum collection catalog (PAC 62/63/64).
The timeline
- The rugged luggable
Dolch begins building high-end ruggedized portables for engineers - suitcase-format machines with real expansion slots, aimed at industrial, military, and test-and-measurement work.
- PAC-60 and the analyzer era
The 486-class PAC-60 (and the Pentium PACs that follow) become the definitive field chassis for network analysis: multi-slot, multi-interface, and strong enough to live in a crash cart.
- Founder steps back from ownership
Volker Dolch sells his interest in the company but continues to run it until retiring in 2001.
Per Wikipedia's company record.
- Ranked number one
Venture Development Corporation ranks Dolch first in the rugged portable market - a ranking it repeats in 2002.
Per the Centre for Computing History and Kontron's 2005 acquisition release.
- Kontron acquires Dolch
Kontron AG buys Dolch Computer Systems from Siegel-Robert in February 2005; Dolch operates as a business unit of Kontron America.
Per Kontron's acquisition announcement, February 25, 2005.
- The line moves on
Kontron sells the rugged mobile platform to Azonix - the end of the Dolch name, though the gray luggables soldier on in fields and eBay listings for years.
Flagship products and solutions
- PAC series (PAC 60-65)Suitcase-format rugged portables with full-size expansion slots - 486 through Pentium MMX - the canonical Sniffer field platform.
- Rugged displaysShock-, vibration-, and environment-sealed touch displays for industrial and military installations.
Key innovations
- The field-analysis chassisDolch understood that serious field tooling needed desktop-class buses in a portable body. The PACs carried the multi-interface capture hardware that laptops of the day simply could not - making deep protocol analysis a portable discipline.
Main markets
Rugged portables for test and measurement, oil and gas, military, and public safety - with the network-analysis market as the visible crown: wherever a Sniffer went in the 1990s, a Dolch usually carried it.
Analyst standing
- Included in the pioneer lineage as infrastructure-of-the-craft: the hardware half of the packet-analysis story told in the Sniffer lineage profile. Twice ranked first in its market before the 2005 Kontron acquisition and the 2007 Azonix handoff closed the chapter.