Company · Heritage
Anyone can say "since 1983."
We kept the receipts.
A 1986 catalog. A 1991 magazine ad. The Los Angeles Times in 1992. A decade of Orange County college catalogs listing the courses we taught. This page is the paper trail behind our founding claim — scanned, dated, and public. It even records our original name: long before the cloud, CRC stood for Computer Research Center.
The clippings
Trade press, local magazines, and one major newspaper — from the era when our name meant peripherals, training, and tune-ups.
CRC Computer Supplies — Computer Peripherals & Supplies Catalog
Spring/Summer 1986
Our first catalog, published as CRC Computer Supplies, a division of Computer Research Center, from Dupont Drive in Irvine. Floppy disks, dot-matrix ribbons, and printer switchboxes — the essentials that kept 1980s offices running. Before the cloud, CRC meant Computer Research Center; the initials never changed.
The Saddleback Magazine
Spring 1991
A vintage ad marking our dedication to the academic sector: IBM, Apple Macintosh, and Compaq hardware, software, and training — with full product support and educational discounts.
Los Angeles Times — 'Computer Checkups Prevent Bugs That Can Stop Work Cold'
October 24, 1992
Bob Duke's Home Office column quotes our founder on preventative care — test for viruses, align the files, check the drive — with tune-ups then priced at $55 to $75. Yousef Alinaghian is photographed at the bench, testing a machine he assembled. We were pitching proactive maintenance a decade before anyone called it managed services.
Irvine Spectrum News — 'Even Regular Folks Are Learning to Build Web Pages'
June 28 – July 2, 1999
With Y2K approaching, the Spectrum News profiled the one-day web design class at Irvine Valley College taught by Yousef Alinaghian, president of Computer Research Center Inc. — students publishing real sites with FrontPage 98, no HTML required.
We taught Orange County its IT
For a decade, our engineers stood at the front of community-college classrooms — Irvine Valley College, Orange Coast College, Rancho Santiago College — teaching the county to build PCs, run Novell networks, and publish its first web pages.
Irvine Valley College
Fall 1993
Our courses that term: How to Build IBM-PC Compatible Computers, AutoCAD Workshop, and Novell Network Management.
Irvine Valley College
Winter 1994
Courses: Novell Network Management, How to Build IBM-PC Compatible Computers, and AutoCAD Workshop.
Irvine Valley College
Winter 1995
Courses: How to Build IBM-PC Compatibles, Excel, Access, Novell Network Management, PowerPoint, AutoCAD, Windows 3.1, and Word for Windows.
Irvine Valley College
Spring 1995
Courses: AutoCAD Workshop, Novell Network Management, Windows 3.1, Excel, Access, Word, and PowerPoint.
Irvine Valley College
Fall 1995
Courses: Excel, Quicken, PowerPoint, AutoCAD Workshop, Internet, Operating Systems, and Networking.
Irvine Valley College
Winter 1996
Winter-term catalog from the year our classroom program hit full stride — PC building, office software, networking, and the early Internet, taught by our engineers.
Irvine Valley College
Spring 1996
Courses: Visual Basic Programming, Novell Network Management, Internet, Windows 3.1, Word, and Excel.
Rancho Santiago College — Community Services Classes
Spring 1996
Our teaching reach beyond Irvine: Rancho Santiago College's Spring 1996 community-services catalog, registration opening January 8, 1996.
Irvine Valley College
Summer 1996
Summer-term catalog — our engineers teaching Orange County the PC, the network, and the brand-new web.
Irvine Valley College
Fall 1996
Fall-term catalog: Macintosh System 7.5 fundamentals, Word, Excel, Windows 3.1 and 95, Access, PowerPoint, Visual Basic, Inside Your PC, Novell Network Management, and Internet.
Irvine Valley College — 1997 Spring Planner
Spring 1997
Courses: Desktop Publishing, Excel, Inside Your PC, hands-on Internet, PowerPoint, Project, Web Page Authoring, Windows 95, Windows NT, and Word.
Irvine Valley College
Summer 1997
Summer-term catalog as the program shifted decisively toward the web — page authoring, Internet, and the tools of the first browser generation.
Irvine Valley College
Fall 1997
Courses: AutoCAD 13, Access, Project, Web Page Authoring, Internet, How to Build and Upgrade Your PC, and Peachtree Complete Accounting.
Irvine Valley College — Corporate and Community Education Programs
Spring 1998
Courses: AutoCAD, Internet, Windows 95, Word 97, and Excel 97 — under IVC's corporate-training banner.
Discovery — Orange Coast College Community Education
Summer 1999
OCC's Discovery catalog: Windows 98, Word 97, Internet, Excel 97, and Create Your Web Site with FrontPage 98.
Irvine Valley College — 'Classes You Take Over the Internet'
Spring/Summer 2000
The cover line says it all. Inside: Creating Web Pages, Advanced Web Pages, Web Graphics, FrontPage 98, Macromedia Flash I & II, Oracle 8, and Database Design — most classes just $63. A decade of teaching ends exactly where the next era begins: online.
Why it matters today: the same team that taught this county its networks now runs its private cloud. The full story, 1983 to now →
From Prime minicomputers to a private cloud
The through-line across every clipping on this page is the same: infrastructure people, teaching and supporting the businesses around them. Four decades later that means a Tier III-standard datacenter, a 24/7 security operation, and published pricing.
Meet the people behind it →