Intuit.

" By 1985 the company was struggling to stay afloat. Three employees left when Cook and Proulx became unable to pay salaries. The other four, still believing in their product, kept working for six months without any pay." http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/intuit-inc-...

Here are two instances I recently came across:

1. Pandora - http://it-jobs.fins.com/Articles/SB129683674636383261/Pandor...

2. ThatGameCompany (Journey) - http://www.destructoid.com/journey-took-thatgamecompany-into...

Blogger. IIRC from Founders at Work[1] book the company was on its last legs and everyone, even a co-founder, left. The only person left was Ev Williams and eventually figured out how to grow and make some rev. and ultimately sell to Google.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001C30BH6/ref=oh_d__o04_de...

Lisp Machines Inc. (LMI) in 1982 as I recall.

While negotiating with TI for an investment, for 2 months we were told our monthly paychecks had been cut but were stored in the safe; working was of course optional.

For whatever reasons (I could afford it and Lisp was (and still is) something of a crusade for me), we continued working and got those paychecks when TI made their investment. (They were sufficiently serious they also bought Western Digital's workstation unit; LMI's processor was a 4 card system that plugged into its NuBus and used the rest of the system's infrastructure.)

Can't source it, but as I recall Nolan Bushnell said you aren't a real entrepreneur until you've made a payroll out of your credit cards....

Apple when they moved out of the garage..

There is no coming back your employees will leave promptly.