28 Jun
2001
28 Jun
'01
5:22 p.m.
On Thu, 28 Jun 2001, Carlos Murillo wrote:
> A few days ago one of the storage rooms at the
university
> was cleaned up and I grabbed all the
computer-related
stuff
> that I could. Not a lot of variety, though.
Besides
> from the wintel carcasses and Mac plus remains, I found
> one Datapoint 1550 and several modules from a type
system that
> I have never seen. The cpu, floppy disk drives
and
graphics
> modules snap onto each other's side very
neatly. There
are
> several of these systems, with the corresponding
monitors and
> keyboards. Alas, the only power supply unit that
I
found
is incomplete
and badly damaged. Do you guys have some
info about these systems? Pics can be found at
The Datapoint 1550 is I believe just a terminal, but it full-fledged computer. I know the model 1600 and 1800
are
all-in-one
computers which were actually meant to be the CPU in a
multi-node
Datapoint network (connected via ARCNET).
Look inside the unit and if there is a card cage then it's
most likely a
CPU. Late 1970's vintage.
The book "Computer Power for the Small Business" by
Sippl/Dahl (1979) profiles the Datapoint 1500. The 1500
looks a lot like the 1550 you have, except that the keyboard
and CPU/display are separate units. Storage is in a
separate dual side-by-side floppy drive. According to my
specs, the 1500 came with 32K of memory and sold for $5,950.
Datapoint was HQ'd in San Antonio, TX.