Proprietary hardware

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Proprietary hardware is hardware, on which a vendor had purposely placed compatibility restrictions, in order to maintain a vendor lock-in.

For example, a vendor installs a proprietary Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) on its motherboards, which is compatible only with same vendor's graphics card.

Historically, most early computer hardware was designed as proprietary until 1980s, when IBM PC changed this paradigm. But earlier, in 1970s, many vendors were trying to challenge IBM's monopoly in the mainframe computer market, by reverese engineering and producing hardware components electrically compatible with expensive equipment. Those vendors were generally nicknamed plug compatible manufacturers (PCMs).

See also

• Vendor lock-in
• Micro Channel architecture, a commonly cited historical example of proprietary hardware

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