Datapoint

Datapoint Corporation, originally known as Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC), was a computer company based in San Antonio, Texas, United States. Founded in July 1968 by Phil Ray and Gus Roche, its first products were, as the company's initial name suggests, computer terminals intended to replace Teletype machines connected to time sharing systems. From the mid-1960s, engineers (John) Phil Ray and Austin O. "Gus" Roche were working for General Dynamics Dynatronic Division in Florida, as part of a computing contract team for NASA to enable President John F. Kennedy's vision of putting a man on the moon. At the time, mainframe computers were large room-filling pieces of equipment, for which data was input using dumb and noisy Teletype terminals. On the advice of one of his tutors from the University of Texas, Ray and Roche decided to develop a quieter and smaller input device based on using a television set screen. After finding San Antonio, Texas based backers, the pair incorporated Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) there in July 1968. Based on a newly developed Texas Instruments chip, with a casing designed by an industrial designer in New York City, the company had developed three prototype Datapoint 3300 (deriving the name from the existing competitor Teletype Model 33), it was an immediate hit at that year's computer show. However, the resultant orders left the company with several major problems: they had no production capacity, and no money with which to build a factory. Furthermore, the TI chips within the 3300 were so unreliable, they needed replacing every 30 minutes. In October 1969, the company raised US$4 million through an initial public offering (IPO). This enabled them to outsource production short term to a series of local manufacturers, including a motorcycle helmet manufacturer, before constructing their own manufacturing premises. Once in production, they began sourcing chips from both TI and Intel, running up large debts from both. The Datapoint 3300 sold very successfully for a number of years.