card from 1985. Larry Boucher, Wayne Higashi, and Bernard Nieman founded Adaptec in 1981. At first, Adaptec focused on devices with
Parallel SCSI interfaces. Popular
host bus adapters included the 154x/15xx
ISA family, the 2940
PCI family, and the 29160/-320 family. Their cross-platform
ASPI was an early
API for accessing and integrating non-
disk devices like
tape drives,
scanners and
optical disks. With advancements in technology,
RAID functions were added while interfaces evolved to
PCIe and
SAS. Adaptec made a number of acquisitions in the 1990s to expand its reach in the SCSI peripheral market. In March 1993, it acquired
Trantor Systems Ltd. of
Fremont, California, for $10 million. In July 1995, it acquired
Future Domain Corporation of
Irvine, California, for $25 million. In 1999, it acquired
Distributed Processing Technology for $236 million. On May 10, 2010,
PMC-Sierra, Inc. and Adaptec, Inc. announced they had entered into a definitive agreement of PMC-Sierra acquiring Adaptec's channel storage business on May 8, 2010, which included Adaptec's
RAID storage product line, the Adaptec brand, a global value added reseller customer base, board logistics capabilities, and SSD cache performance solutions. The transaction was expected to close in approximately 30 days, subject to customary closing conditions. Following the sale, Adaptec would retain its Aristos
ASIC technology business, certain real estate assets, more than 200 patents, and approximately $400 million in cash and marketable securities. On June 8, 2010, PMC-Sierra and Adaptec announced the completion of the acquisition. PMC-Sierra renamed the channel storage business "Adaptec by PMC". PMC-Sierra was in turn acquired by
Microsemi in January 2016. The old Adaptec, Inc. changed its name to ADPT Corporation, and then again to Steel Excel, Inc. Steel Excel was an
investment firm that then merged with Handy & Harman Ltd. to form Steel Partners, a
conglomerate. ==Products==