Parasitic Engineering

Parasitic Engineering, Inc.
Company typePrivate
IndustryComputer
Founded1974; 50 years ago (1974) in Oakland, California, United States
Founders
  • Howard Fullmer
  • Gene Nardi
Defunct1983; 41 years ago (1983)
FateDissolution
HeadquartersAlbany, California
ProductsEquinox 100
Number of employees
9 (1977)

Parasitic Engineering, Inc., was an American computer company founded by Howard Fullmer and Gene Nardi in 1974. Named as a tongue-in-cheek reference to a comment by MITS co-founder Ed Roberts, Parasitic's first products were hardware upgrade kits to MITS' Altair 8800 microcomputer kit, improving the latter's power supply rating and susceptibility to noise. The company later released their own microcomputer based on the same bus as the Altair, the S-100, but it was less popular than the company's hardware-improvement kits. By 1979, the company had pivoted to providing upgrades to Tandy's TRS-80. Parasitic went defunct in 1983.