[GreenKeys] Teletype Corp. History circa 1960

[Jim Haynes]

On Fri, 17 Mar 2023, Robert Nickels wrote:
> TeleVideo,  Beehive, CTC (Datapoint), and Courier Terminal Systems popped up

There's an interesting book about Datapoint.  "Datapoint : the lost story
of the Texans who invented the personal computer revolution" by Lamont
Wood, circa 2010.  Says their first model was called 3300 because it
was plug-compatible with the Teletype 33 and was 100 times better.  They
took it to a trade show and were getting very little traffic at their
booth.  Then they noticed all the exhibits using Model 33 machines and
persuaded the exhibitors to let them put 3300 terminals in their place.
Suddenly a flood of interest.

Then they acquired Vic Poor.  Vic had worked for Frederick Electronics
Corp. in Maryland making all kinds of Teletype-related products, was
well known in Ham RTTY circles.  At Datapoint he developed the next
generation products, which included networking and programmable
terminals.  Some customers actually used them like personal computers.
Vic is said to have designed the architecture of the Intel 8008
microprocessor - there's a transcript of an oral history interview
out on the web somewhere.  But Intel was reluctant to make the chips,
so the terminal was actually built with ordinary ICs.  Texas Instruments
was also in contact with Datapoint as a possible microprocessor vendor.
At one point T.I. attempted to claim ownership of the design.  This
was foiled because somebody at Datapoint had decided the company should
have its own distinctive type font for its Selectric typewriters.
It was shown that all the documents describing the microprocessor were
typed on Datapoint typewriters.  The Datapoint name lives on in
San Antonio in a chain of Taqueria Datapoint restaurants.