Well, surely i’m not going to come even close to winning the contest. But i’m getting good comments! ☺

Interesting stuff about the DataPoint terminals. I hitherto knew nothing about them. Reminds me a little bit of the DEC VK-100 (from much later), which had a BASIC interpreter built into it (and could save and load via ASCII to and from the serial port).

While I was not directly involved, the company I worked for was party to the first successful 8-bit microprocessor, the Intel 8008. This was originally a joint venture between Intel and Datapoint, with the design work being done by Intel specifically to replace the TTL logic Datapoint was using in our early “desktop” computers. When Datapoint management decided that committing to a single chip was too risky (which sounds silly now), Datapoint released its rights to the design in return for not having to pay Intel what it owed for Intel’s design effort. Intel finished the design, went commercial, and the rest is history. One artifact of this relationship is that Intel’s instruction set even today still bears some resemblance to the Datapoint instruction set of the early ’70s.

Datapoint kind of backed into making 8-bit desktop computers. The company began as Computer Terminal Corporation in 1968, making what was originally called a “glass teletype” to replace electro-mechanical, hardcopy terminals. The first one was called the “Datapoint 3300″ and was a dumb terminal.

Our next major product was a “smart” terminal, intended still to connect to a mainframe, but with enough smarts to have some functionality if the line to the mainframe went down. The intent was that it would be used in remote offices. It was our customers who figured out that the Datapoint 2200 was the first desktop computer and started using it by itself. IIRC, the 2200 came out about 1972.

This led to a desire for a much more powerful desktop machine, and Datapoint responded with the 5500, which is the one originally intended to have the Intel 8008.

Datapoint later did succumb to the lure of the microprocessor, and developed the 1500, which used a Zilog Z-80, another 8-bit chip.

I can remember when we first started offering hard drives with the 5500. The first one was a Wangco 5 MB (that’s not a typo), 14-inch drive about the size of a trash compactor. I remember at the time that we all speculated that no one would ever figure out how to fill up something so huge. IIRC, our first floppy drives, used on the 1500 and 1800, had a capacity of 92 KB per disk.

Fun stuff.

Before I owned the Atari, I had a Sinclair ZX-81… I had the RAM expansion. The only thing I really remember about that computer was that every time you pressed a key, the screen would clear and slowly redraw and that RAM module got EXTREMELY hot. It was cute.

Also, don’t forget the Atari 2600 and their fairly rare BASIC Programming cartridge. This was one of the few “game programs” for the Atari 2600 that used the keyboard controllers (which I would assume these days is just as rare). The display would be a split screen where your “source” would appear in one screen, your “stack” of variables would appear in another part of the screen and then your output would appear elsewhere. You can toggle each one on and off. The functions (print, goto, etc.) were preset and involved having to make two keystrokes to generate. Overall, it was cute and had the potential of introducing many “geek-newbs” at the time to computer programming.

I also have very fond memories of the TRS-80 Models I and III. I never owned one, but the Rat Shack store was just down the street and I had a bicycle at the time. Those were the days!

Michelle A. Eyre, K7REC
founder, REC Networks
=m

I’m glancingly familiar with the TRS-80 Model III; but it never struck me as a remarkable machine. But i’ll grant that it was one of the early popular personal computers.

As for the likes of the Amiga, NeXT, and IBM-oid Tandys, i was focusing on 8 bit platforms, and these are 16 and 32 bit systems (though the 8088s were shoehorned into an 8 bit motherboard architecture).

My original title was “Brian Patrie’s Top Five Obsolete Computer Platforms (in no particular order).” I suspect that Chris felt that it was too conditional. I have to agree. I was attempting to excuse the narrow scope of my list. I should have just gone with more than five. Still, i don’t think it’s too shabby for a couple hours of off the cuff rambling. ☺

Maybe i’ll develop it more some day, and broaden the scope. Or, someone else could write one. ☺

I think the title should be changed, as this does not even scratch the surface of obsolete computers available today. Even the PCJr. should be mentioned.