DATAPOINT 2200. Ever heard of it? TTL precursor of the 8008.

[wilfred]

I have never heard of it. We all know that Intel made the 4004 micrprocessor under contract for a calculator company. Well apparently they were contracted to make the 8008 for Computer Terminal Corp (CTC). The delivery was too slow and performance not good enough so CTC made a TTL compatible version and called it the DATAPOINT 2200.

They made and sold it right throughout the 1970's. According to the link I read they also invented a LAN for it.
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=596
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datapoint_2200


Who knew?

I'd love to read more about the TTL processor design and construction. Anyone know more?

Edit:
I continued searching and found a few more links that people interested in the history of the Datapoint 2200, the Intel 8008 and microprocessors in general should find of some worth.

A copy of Robert R Schaller's PhD thesis.
TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION IN THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY:
A CASE STUDY OF THE INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP FOR
SEMICONDUCTORS (ITRS)
http://corphist.computerhistory.org/corphist/documents/doc-487ecec0af0da.pdf

Yeah. Did anyone read it with a title like that?    Chapter 7 looks interesting and the Datapoint 2200 starts on pp319
Worth a look.

I found the above link through this page on the Wayback machine of a proper greybeard who developed the LAN used with the Datapoint 2200.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120722020549/http://home.roadrunner.com/~gep2/

[Silveruser]

The story is certainly part of computer history. In Canada one of the railways used them complete with card punches and daisy wheel printers. I didn't have the pleasure of working on them, I basically remember them as needing a lot of service. In a nice data center they would likely be ok, but most of these were used in buildings next to rail lines that were built in the days of coal. Not the best environment and the operators were long time rail workers.

[helius]

Multiple-IC TTL processors were the industry standard from the mid-1960s until 1980 or later; microprocessors were niche during that period. The machine you cite was definitely not an outlier in its technology. Commonly, bit-slice ALUs and sequencers like the AMD2900 series were used as building blocks for those processors.
A few important microprocessors were made in bipolar logic, too.

[dexters_lab]

I'd love to read more about the TTL processor design and construction. Anyone know more?

there is a bit more info here:
http://www.righto.com/2017/03/analyzing-vintage-8008-processor-from.html

[Chris-IP5]

I've found an interesting technical document http://history-computer.com/Library/2200_Reference_Manual.pdf

To give you an idea of the level of detail in the PDF...
Overview, list of peripherals
Differences between 2200 version 1 and version
Processor arrangement, ALU, memory with block diagrams. And details of the instruction format (which binary digit does what) and the whole instruction set.
Once you get to the IO part there are device address assignments and circuit diagrams.

CRT format is 80chars by 12 line, P31 green phosphor.

I'm resisting the temptation to try making one!

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=596 has background info.
It says there Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) launched the Datapoint 2200 product, which became so popular CTC changed their name to Datapoint Corporation.

[ebastler]

I'm resisting the temptation to try making one!

That project might teach you why a single-chip microprocessor was already considered desirable at the time!