Receive Your Copy Datapoint: The Lost Story Of The Texans Who Invented The Personal Computer Revolution Scripted By Lamont Wood Accessible As Volume
The audacity of It's wonderful to finally see somebody publicly recognize the revolution in the computer industry that was created by Datapoint Corporation nee Computer Terminal Corporation in San Antonio, Texas.
Before the, computers came in a chassis or rack, had all kinds of Lamont provides insight about the true origin of the first integrated personal computer, washing away the incomplete lore and popular distortions that many in the computer industry have come to accept.
It turns out to be complex and interesting than is commonly The story is accurate in most details, Previous Datapoint employees will find this a fascinating read, I was at Datapoint for a couple of years for the building of the laser printer under David Monroe, The print engine was a KIP rather than the reported Minolta, Datapoint Concentrates on the principals who started Datapoint, I am a former TRW Datapoint employee, I know there were a lot of other very interesting stories about Datapoint, I would have liked to see some of that richness woven in, Some examples may include: o Lamont is an experienced freelance writer, who has covered the computer industry for decades, He's fortunate to have
worked at Datapoint, and lives in San Antonio, so was able to put together many details from first hand interviews with the key founders and experts, to If youre interested in the history of technology this book should be on your reading list.
It describes one of the most underappreciated and underrated companies in the computer business, The story is a good one and could have been great, Unfortunately the
Forget Apple and IBM, For that matter forget Silicon Valley, The first personal computer, a self contained unit with its own programmable processor, display, keyboard, internal memory, telephone interface, and mass storage of data was born in San Antonio TX.
US Patent number,was filed November,for a machine that is the direct lineal ancestor to the PC as we know it today, The story begins in, when two Texans, Phil Ray and Gus Roche, founded a firm called Computer Terminal Corporation, As the name implies their first product was a Datapointcomputer terminal replacement for a mechanical Teletype, However, they knew all the while that thewas only a way to get started, and it was cover for what their real intentions were to create a programmable mass produced desktop computer.
They brought in Jack Frassanito, Vic Poor, Jonathan Schmidt, Harry Pyle and a team of designers, engineers and programmers to create the Datapoint, In an attempt to reduce the size and power requirement of the computer it became apparent that theprocessor could be printed on a silicon chip, Datapoint approached Intel who rejected the concept as a "dumb idea" but were willing to try for a development contract, Intel belatedly came back with their chip but by then the Datapointwas already in production, Intel added the chip to its catalog designating it the, A later upgrade, theformed the heart of the Altair and IMSI in the mid seventies, With further development it was used in the first IBM PC the PC revolution's chip dynasty, If you're using a PC, you're using a modernized Datapoint,