Talk:Datapoint

this web sites provides an excellent back grounder on Datapoint technolgy http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=596 G

Should LiteLink refer to "infrared" rather than "infered"? --Black Walnut 21:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The reference to the Intel 4004 in the main article is inaccurate. Datapoint (Harry Pyle, Vic Poor) had nothing to do with that processor. Their interactions with intel were for their Datapoint 2200 design only, what became the 8008. 98.225.46.254 (talk) 18:44, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

122.148.82.155 (talk) 07:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)BAC Esher Adelman may have bought some shares in 1985, but his takover happened around 1988 or 89. This was when he stripped the assets and many staff were retrenched worldwide. Most were ighly skilled and easily found alternaive employment. Adelman lost a huge asset when these people moved on.
 * geesh, it has been 25 years and folks still can't spell Asher Edleman....the company was already on the skids of its own creation by the time Edleman arrived (and he was well onboard when I left in 87). All he did was sweep up the mess that upper mgmt had created, such as ignoring DOS and the legion of customers who wanted it. The "you will take RMS and love it" attitude killed them. Trust me the exodus of talent had begun long before Edleman arrived. The vulture never kills its food. Ken (talk) 18:37, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

-- I believe that Sam Irwin, founder of Sycor Inc. of Ann Arbor MI should be credited with the distinction of "inadvertently inventing the earliest known device that bears any significant resemblance to the modern personal computer." I base this on my memory as an employee at Sycor in 1971 and also on the information below. The Sycor 340 was a second generation "intelligent terminal" like the DataPoint 2200. The first versions were in use on the NY Stock Exchange in the the late 60's. The Sycor 340 included a TTL logic processors, 8K RAM and 8K ROM, x780 communications emulation, twod data cassettes and a ROM based Terminal Assembly Language - "TAL". Some customers used the 340 as a desk top computer and so did I. The 340 looked a lot like the Radio Shack TRS-80 that came about a decade later.

"Sycor was founded in 1966 by Samuel N. Irwin, who had previously worked for Hewlett-Packard. At one time, Sycor was Ann Arbor’s largest private employer, with over 2000 people. In 1978, it was bought by Northern Telecom, Inc. (NTI, later known as Nortel).

Irwin* and Michael R. Levine, who later founded Ann Arbor Terminals, were the named inventors of US Patent 3760375, “Source Data Entry Terminal”, which became the subject of a ten-year patent infringement dispute with Datapoint Corporation. In court, Datapoint attacked NTI’s ownership of the patent (unsuccessfully, as NTI had bought Sycor) and looked for prior art. Irwin’s previously employment at HP was looked at, as some of the claims of the ’375 patent appeared to be covered by the HP 2116, but the court did not consider this relevant, as the patent distinguished itself from other general purpose computers. At first, the patent was declared non-enabling, as the specification “inadequately discloses the program of the ’375 device”, but this was later reversed. By the end of 1992, the settlement left Datapoint liable for $7.5 million, with additional payments over the next ten years that were estimated at the time to have the potential to cost the company around $30 million in total."

Source -    * Blake Gumprecht, “High-Tech Valhalla: College Towns as Alternative Sites for Knowledge-Based Industry” [PDF], retrieved 2006-06-24. --- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rwgaines (talk • contribs) 10:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

--- One User's Memory: I will say it is "the earliest known device" I encountered "that bears any significant resemblance to the modern personal computer"; in the early 1970s at Kingsport Press, head programmer Raymand McDavid and I were trained in Databus and Datashare; we had a couple of stand-alone 2200s with dual tape drives, and four Datapoint terminals connected to a control unit with harddisk drive and IBM-compatible tape drive. Raymond wrote a compare program for double-keying and comparing text entry, and a program for entry of telephone directory data. We used the datapoints more as personal computers than as intelligent terminals; this was before Apple II and IBM PC came along. (1970-1994, we wrote our text entry and type composition systems in 360/370 assembly, ran on IBM mainframe located in the MIS department, with 3270 terminals throughout composition department.) Whether Datapoint was absolutely ""the earliest known device that bears any significant resemblance to the modern personal computer" is another question. Just one user's memory. Naaman Brown (talk) 15:16, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Datapoint Corporation should be linked to this entry
I believe non-existing Datapoint Corporation should be linked to this entry.

I am not sure if this change deserves to be discussed or should be made right away. And if it should, then how do I make the edit?--Atw1996 (talk) 17:46, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Founders
I am curious as to who the author or authors are to this article. Several times I have tried to add and correct the list of founders to include my father Jerry martin in this list and it has been removed. Apparently you are not aware of Datapoints history or you had some beef with him and chose to show disrespect but not adding him. My father is the only surviving member. Many of you are not aware that Gus Roach chose not to sign a multi-million dollar deal with IBM which would have put Datapoint on the map and made it a household name. You may not be aware that all the buildings that Datapoint had were designed by my father. My father contributed a lot to Datapoint and deserves the recognition and respect as a part of Datapoints History. To willfully ignore that not only does not only do a disservice to him but to you as a writer as well. I can be contacted at ericscottmartin@yahoo.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ericscottmartin (talk • contribs) 13:35, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

MIssing the 1100
My father worked these machines at Uniroyal. They made tires and nagahide (synthetic leather). We had the 1100 model in our house which had the punch card size screen and four 8 inch drives. The entire chasis was a desk. I believe that the 2200 was the successor and much faster which we also had. I think the mention of the 3300 and 2200 as the earliest is inaccurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.48.6.139 (talk) 16:46, 23 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The 1100 series was a later, lower cost machine that used Floppies instead of cassette tape. The 1100 series was more of a stand-alone system and a real forerunner of the PC. Ken (talk) 03:53, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

External links modified
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Arcnet Card
Who wrote this? There was never an Arcnet Card in the 2200. Arcnet was in a large external box connected to the 50 pin parallel port. The same was true for the 5500 and the 6600. It was not until the 8800 that an Arcnet card was developed. I know because I designed it! I also designed the tape deck boot loader.

Also Arcnet stands for Attached Resource Computer Network. The original name was Dosnet, then Internet, but that was trademarked. So Jonathan Schmidt came up with the name Arcnet in a meeting that I was attending.

Russ Herring 50.37.142.152 (talk) 18:10, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
 * So fix it. Guy Harris (talk) 18:58, 2 December 2022 (UTC)