mechanical men . u.s. robotics corporation type private industry computer founded 1976 40 years ago headquarters schaumburg illinois products modems wired and wireless networking voip owner unicom global website www.usr.com u.s. robotics corporation often called usr is a company that produces usrobotics computer modems and related products . its initial marketing was aimed at bulletin board systems where its high speed hst protocol made fidonet transfers much faster and thus less costly . during the 1990s it became a major consumer brand with its sportster line . the company had a reputation for high quality and support for the latest communications standards as they emerged notably in its v.everything line released in 1996 . with the reduced usage of analog or voiceband modems in north america in the early 21st century usr began branching out into new markets . the company purchased palm inc. for its palmpilot pda but was itself purchased by 3com soon after . 3com spun off usr again in 2000 keeping palm and returning usr to the now much smaller modem market . after 2004 the company is formally known as usr . it is one of the few companies left in the modem market today and now employs about 125 people worldwide . 1 contents 1 history 2 commoditization 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit this section needs additional citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . may 2008 learn how and when to remove this template message usr was founded in 1976 in chicago illinois and later moved to skokie illinois by a group of entrepreneurs including casey cowell who served as ceo for most of the company s history and paul collard who designed modems into the mid 1980s . the company name is a reference to the fiction of isaac asimov who is credited with inventing the term robotics . asimov s robot stories featured a fictional company named u.s. robots and mechanical men . cowell stated at a popular bbs convention they named the company as an homage to asimov and because in his science fiction works u.s. robots eventually became the biggest company in the universe . citation needed the later 2004 movie i robot which was loosely based on asimov s works and set in chicago used the name u.s. robotics for the fictional robot manufacturer . the movie s u.s. robotics corporate logo resembles a former nonfictional usr logo . following the release of the movie the company officially changed its name to usr . usr was one of many companies to offer dial up modems for personal computers . prior to the development of standards such as the v. 32 family of protocols usr introduced its own hst high speed transfer protocol in 1986 which operated at 9600 bit s bits per second . in 1989 hst was expanded to 14.4 kbit s 16.8 kbit s in 1992 and finally to 21 kbit s and 24 kbit s. usr was not the only company making modems with proprietary protocols ; telebit s trailblazer series offered speeds up to 19.2 kbit s in its first model and hayes also introduced the 9600 bit s express 96 or ping pong system . however usr became the most successful of the three due to a marketing scheme that offered large discounts to bbs sysops . u.s. robotics sportster 14 400 fax modem 1994 the proprietary nature of hst allowed usr to maintain its market predominance even when off brand v. 32 based modems began selling for less than equivalent hst modems . as the price differential decreased however v. 32 based modems eventually became a cost effective alternative to hst . nevertheless usr countered by creating slightly faster hst protocols notably a 16.8 kbit s mode and by producing dual standard modems that were able to communicate with both hst and v. 32 modems at high speeds . during this period usr differentiated between its high and low end product lines by supporting only the v. 32 modes on its low end sportster models while its high end courier models supported v. 32 hst or both in the courier dual standard models . the sportster used the same motherboard as the couriers and on certain 14.4 kbit s models a sequence of at commands could be issued to enable the faster 16.8 kbit s hst mode . 2 the courier modems remained a favorite in the bbs and emerging internet service provider world where they were known to run without problems for extended periods of time although the initial large scale deployment of courier modems in the compuserve network uncovered a serious bug which would cause the modems to crash and stop answering calls under high call volumes . usr sportster 56k 117102 isa modem supporting x2 and v. 90 courier dual standard v34 fax with v32 bis a similar situation emerged a few years later when the 56kbit s v. 90 standard was first being proposed . usr developed its own 56k standard known as x2 while a consortium of other companies introduced its own k56flex . in contrast to the success of hst neither x2 nor k56flex saw any real market uptake as it was clear they would soon be followed by v. 90 modems . after the introduction of v. 90 usr abandoned support for x2 . in a further effort to reduce the retail price of its modems usr also marketed a winmodem that used software running on the host computer to perform some of the modem functions . some models of courier modems were known for their long term upgradeability because they used an upgradeable dsp design . for example when the courier v.everything modem was first released in 1994 under the product label courier v. 34 ready it shipped with only v.fc support because v. 34 had not been released . a free v. 34 upgrade was made available later via fidonet as well as the internet . usr then surprised many early courier v.everything modem owners with a limited time free offer of an x2 firmware upgrade which added 56k speed capability . finally usr released a v. 90 upgrade that was compatible with x2 upgraded courier v.everything modems . even the 1994 hardware released pre v. 34 was fully v. 90 upgradeable without hardware modification . there was a licensing key needed for some courier v.everything v. 90 flash upgrades . the firmware could be loaded onto the modem but it would work in degraded v. 34 mode . after paying a fee and having the modem dial usr a license key was installed that enabled the v. 90 functions . commoditization edit after acquiring palm inc. in 1995 usr merged with 3com corporation in june 1997 . 3 it was then recreated as a spin off of 3com in june 2000 assuming 3com s entire client modem business except for the palm related portion which itself had been spun off with palm three months earlier . other portions of the original usr remained part of 3com as the commworks corporation . usr then quickly built up its device portfolio including not only traditional dial up modems but also wired and wireless networking components . usr was acquired by private equity firm platinum equity for an undisclosed amount of cash in 2005 believed to be between us 30 million and us 50 million . 4 by 2010 the company was focused only on the traditional modem business . in 2013 usr was acquired by unicom global . 5 see also edit ibm mwave combined modem and sound digital signal processor dsp card allowing soft upgrades within its hardware limitations . references edit www.usr.com press pr backgrounder.asp groups.google.com group comp.dcom.telecom.tech browse frm thread 4b07122a94a43b50 news.cnet.com investors bless 3com usr merger 2100 1001 3 200418.html www.ecommercetimes.com story 45484.html welcome 1218602835 http support.usr.com press pr press release.asp prid 693 external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to u.s. robotics . official website of u.s. robotics corporation corporate press kit that discusses origin of company name pdf article discussing the asimov usr connection and usr s marketing tie ins to the movie business data for u.s. robotics corporation google finance yahoo finance hoover s retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title usrobotics & oldid 742434741 categories computer companies of the united statescompanies based in cook county illinoisschaumburg illinoiscompanies established in 1976privately held companies based in illinoistelecommunications equipment vendorsprivate equity portfolio companiesnetworking companies of the united stateshidden categories articles needing additional references from may 2008all articles needing additional referencesall articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from december 2010commons category with local link same as on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages deutschfran aisitaliano svenska emait ka edit links this page was last modified on 3 october 2016 at 18 00 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view