Eagle Computer of Los Gatos, California was an early successful computer manufacturing company. Spun off from Audio-Visual Laboratories, it first sold a line of popular CP/M computers which were highly praised in the computer magazines of the day. After the IBM PC was launched, Eagle introduced the Eagle 1600 series, which ran MS-DOS but were not true clones. When it became evident that the buying public wanted actual clones of the IBM PC, even if a non-clone had better features, Eagle responded with a line of clones, including a portable. Eagle and Columbia PCs were always rated highest in PC magazines.
On June 8, 1983, the day of Eagle's IPO, its president, Dennis Barnhart, was killed in the crash of his new Ferrari, leaving the company suddenly leaderless. This dramatic timing has led people to suppose that this event caused the end of Eagle. In fact, the company continued to lead PC sales until IBM launched a lawsuit against every company that made PC clones, claiming copyright infringement of the BIOS in its machines. Unable to match IBM's income, all the companies named settled out of court. This destroyed many leading PC manufacturers, as IBM had no doubt intended. It also led to the founding of third-party companies that sold BIOSes to computer manufacturers.
Eagle rewrote its BIOS, but never recovered its lost sales. A final attempt to make a market by selling Eagles to China fell through. The company was out of business by 1986.
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