The History of Black Box

The History of Black Box

The company known today as Black Box was founded as Expandor Inc. more than 45 years ago by Eugene Yost and Dick Raub in Lawrence, Pennsylvania. Like other pioneering technology startups, it had humble beginnings; the company’s first catalog offered only six printer switches, which were widely known as “black boxes” due to their simple black housing. The company grew, and its popular catalog expanded to include a large selection of data communications products and accessories. In 1982, the company rebranded under the name Black Box Corporation.

Over the early years, through changing markets and financial ups and downs, the catalog sales business endured. It moved as a profitable business to Lawrence, Pennsylvania, and changed its name to Black Box Incorporated. (Today, Black Box is a wholly owned subsidiary of AGC Networks.)

The company continued to add products to its portfolio, including networking, cables, and infrastructure products. As technology advanced, the company delivered the first manual KVM switches, followed by electronic KVM switches. With the migration from analog to digital video, pro AV and peripheral signal distribution ultimately became a significant part of the Black Box business.

As companies worldwide began to embrace audio and video distribution, Black Box expanded globally through partnerships and opened new offices in key markets. The company since has built a robust portfolio of KVM, AV and video wall solutions — including the award-winning Emerald Unified KVM platform, which incorporates hardware and software solutions to offer users the utmost flexibility and performance for mission critical applications in various industries including 24/7 command and control rooms and process monitoring environments. Black Box has grown into an IT leader with large R&D and manufacturing facilities, multiple logistic hubs, and a global sales and tech presence that provides high-end application engineering and on-site support.