2 Dec
2006
2 Dec
'06
11:28 a.m.
On Mon, 2006-06-26 at 23:27 -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 6/27/2006 at 1:21 AM Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
HEY!!
The Tandberg is 100% NORWEGIAN!! :)
The Tandberg - I think legacy might be the word - is held in extremely
high regard by most Norwegians, and its founder Vebj?rn Tandberg as
something of an engineer's hero.
The company has a quite interesting history. Tandberg started off as
Tandberg Radiofabriker, started by a brilliant civil engineer by the
name of Vebj?rn Tandberg. Tandberg made a string of innovative,
high-quality radios (The Huldra and S?lvsuper lines are to this day held
in very high regard) and (up until 1971 purely analog audio)
reel/cassette tape decks, and in the early 70s started a subsidiary,
Tandberg Data, tasked with production of computer equipment.
Vebj?rn Tandberg was a pioneer in improving the labour conditions of his
workforce from the 1930s through the 1950s, often being decades ahead of
the rest of the industry.
In 1972, Tandberg and Radionette, the other major Norwegian radio
manufacturer, was purchased by V. Tandberg, after RadioNette had started
a downward spiral into brankruptcy.
In 1978, Tandberg entered bankruptcy protection. Vebj?rn recieved a
letter stating that he was not welcome on the premises. On October 30th,
Vebj?rn committed suicide, and on the 14th of December the company is
declared bankrupt.
In 1979, large parts of Tandberg were swallowed by Norsk Data -
practically at government gunpoint. ND management were optimistic, and
expecting the company to show a profit by 1980. Already halfway into
1980, it was very apparent that this was not to be. The company was
separated back out, and ND continued to grow until 1987.
both http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vebj?rn_Tandberg and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandberg
may be worth reading.
Indeed. I would consider only green-on-black to
be traditional.
I had a brief fling with orange-on-black (somehow called "amber").
The recent talk about terminals reminded me of a terminal I evaluated
sometime around 1979. I think it was by Tandberg, but I could be
wrong--all I remember is that it was of Swedish manufacture. Probably one
of the nicest terminals I'd ever seen.
Agreed.
Everything on it was ergonomically
engineered. The screen could be positioned any way you could imagine; the
keytops were colored according to function
And the keyboard is extremely ergonomic, too. The keyboard has a really
beautiful feel to it. If I could plug a TDV-2200 keyboard into my PC, I
would in an instant! Also, the refresh rate is very high.
Since I have an abundant supply of these, including broken ones, I some
day want to put a modern motherboard in there and have a very very fast
terminal. Maybe even somehow make it show an X display.
and the contrast of the display
was controlled.
Mine have problems with brightness/contrast. One has a very bright
background, and one has a very very weak video signal.
The other thing I recall is that it was one of the
most
expensive terminals I'd ever run across. The Volvo of terminals.
Yeah. To make matters worse, their main OEM dealer Norsk Data, when
selling the terminals, marked them up at least 20 percent when selling
them. As one customer remarked - it was a very expensive "Norsk Data"
sticker...
Anyone care to fill me in on what the thing was--and
if anyone ever used
them. Tandberg sticks in my mind because the same salesman dropped off a 9
track tape drive for evaluation that was definitely a Tandberg.
From your description I'm going to guess that
you're talking about a
TDV-2200 series, most likely the TDV-2215.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TDV-2200 (Picture taken by me)
Here is a picture of one in a "complete system" from an annual report:
http://toresbe.at.ifi.uio.no/nd560-unproc.jpeg
http://nodaf.no/images/f/f0/00013.jpg NODAF has quite a lot of them.
The smaller, lighter-coloured terminal with the Mycron label is the
successor TDV-1200, which was a cheaper, and much later (6 or 7 years)
terminal. It was more compatible with the ANSI standard. It was
white-on-black or black-on-white, with a very high refresh rate.
http://toresbe.at.ifi.uio.no/nodaf/gallery/kp-lager/plan9/00010.jpg
This is the predecessor, the TDV-2115. Less spectacular, but nonetheless
a nice all-round VDU for its day. This is closer to 1973-75. In this
case, Norsk Data did more than add a sticker. They painted the case in
the same low-key, lovely SCREAMING ORANGE!! they did with the rest of
their original and OEM equipment between around '71 and '79. :) The CRT
was yellow-on-black.
-Tore
