Packard Bell

Packard Bell was a Dutch-based computer manufacturing subsidiary of Acer. The brand name originally belonged to an American radio manufacturer Packard Bell founded by Herbert "Herb" A. Bell and Leon S. Packard in 1933. Some websites use 1926 as the founding date when Herbert Bell was an executive with Jackson Bell Company, Los Angeles, California. In 1986, Israeli investors bought the name for a newly formed personal computer manufacturing company producing discount computers in the United States and Canada. In 2000, Packard Bell, then a subsidiary of NEC, stopped its North American operations while remaining a leading brand in the European markets. In 2008 it was acquired by the Taiwanese consumer electronic firm Acer in the aftermath of its takeover of Gateway computers. Gateway products are now sold in the Americas and Asia, while Packard Bell products are sold in Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

History

Founding: Packard Bell Company

The original Packard Bell name began in September 1933. Herbert Bell (birth name Herbert Anthony Zwiebel), former business partner of Jackson Bell Radio Company in Los Angeles, formed Packard Bell. Jackson Bell went into receivership that year due to financial problems. Jackson Bell was one of the few RCA licensed radio manufacturers on the west coast of the United States. Bell partnered with Leon S. Packard. In 1934, they marketed their first radio, the Model 35A (carryover from Jackson Bell). In 1935, Leon Packard sold his partnership to Herb Bell, being skeptical of its future. Herb Bell managed to obtain the RCA license for manufacturing superheterodyne radios. Based in Los Angeles, Packard Bell along with Hoffman Radio became well known regional makers of consumer electronics. Packard Bell ventured into television quickly due to the RCA royalty-free patents.

Packard

Packard was an American luxury automobile marque built by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, United States, and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last in 1958.

History

1899–1905

Packard was founded by James Ward Packard, his brother William, and their partner, George Lewis Weiss, in the city of Warren, Ohio, where 400 Packard automobiles were built at their factory on Dana Street Northeast, from 1899 to 1903. A mechanical engineer, James Packard believed they could build a better horseless carriage than the Winton cars owned by Weiss, an important Winton stockholder, after Packard complained to Alexander Winton and offered suggestions for improvement, which were ignored; Packard's first car was built in Warren, Ohio, on November 6, 1899.

In September, 1900, the Ohio Automobile Company was founded to produce Packard automobiles. These quickly gained an excellent reputation and the name was changed on October 13, 1902, to the Packard Motor Car Company.

Bell

A bell is a simple idiophone percussion instrument. Although bells come in many forms, most are made of metal cast in the shape of a hollow cup, whose sides form a resonator which vibrates in a single tone upon being struck. The strike may be made by a "clapper" or "uvula" suspended within the bell, by a separate mallet or hammer, or—in small bells—by a small loose sphere enclosed within the body of the bell.

Bells are usually made by casting metal, but small bells can also be made from ceramic or glass. Bells range in size from tiny dress accessories to church bells 5 metres tall, weighing many tons. Historically, bells were associated with religious rituals, and before mass communication were widely used to call communities together for both religious and secular events. Later, bells were made to commemorate important events or people and have been associated with the concepts of peace and freedom. The study of bells is called campanology.

A set of bells, hung in a circle for change ringing, is known as a ring or peal of bells.