CENTRAL TX TECHNOPOLIS
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 1:43PM ORIGINS OF THE PERSONAL COMPUTER & THE CENTRAL TEXAS TECHNOPOLIS (1987-2012)
In 1987, Dr. George Kozmetsky, Raymond W. Smilor and David V. Gibson published the The Austin/San Antonio Corridor: The Dynamics of a Developing Technopolis at IC2 Institute (UT Austin). The analysis describes an interaction among Austin, San Antonio and surrounding areas in the I-35 corridor giving rise to a regional high technology economy in Central Texas. The strategic case-based analysis would become the hallmark of his method of describing the system of forces at play in the high technology, knowledge-intensive industries, regions and organizations that today define the 21st century economic landscape. In 1992, the team published Technopolis Phenomenon expanding the analysis to established and emerging high technology regions world-wide:
The technopolis is an innovative approach to economic development that involves linking technology commercialization with effective public and private-sector initiatives to create new infrastructures for economic growth, diversification, and global competitiveness. Leading experts from academia, government, and industry present information, ideas, programs and initiatives that accelerate the creation of smart cities, fast systems, and global networks. Providing both strategic and tactical insights into developing a new type of infrastructure for the twenty-first century-The Technopolis Phenomenon contributes to the enhancement of the quality of life and the range of opportunities in the global marketplace. (Technopolis Phenomenon, 1992)
Austin’s high technology lineage tracks its roots back to Tracor (Associated Consultants and Engineers and Texas Research Associates) founded in 1955. Four professors from the University of Texas at Austin: Richard Lane, Chester McKinney, and Jess Stanbrough, joined later by mechanical engineering professor Frank W. McBee, created the well spring from which Austin's high tech culture of innovation flows.
Tracor served as a model for how to rapidly commercialize university technological discoveries. Through a series of acquisitions, Tracor would ultimately become a major component of BAE defense systems in 201The Austin/San Antonio Corridor reached a crescendo in 1983 when Micro Electronics and Computer Technology Corporation was lured to Austin by Pike Powers and the law firm Fulbright and Jaworski, LLP.
MCC was the country's first consortium for high tech research and development. It was formed to compete with foreign high tech firms who were pooling resources to optimize manufacturing of semiconductors. In 1983, Austin made headlines in the New York Times, the Wall Street journal, and the world press as the next great Silicon Valley when it landed MCC with Admiral Inman at the helm. The corridor boomed again in the dot com era from 1993-2000.
The Austin/San Antonio Corridor 1987
For Kozmetsky and the Innovation Creativity and Capital “think and do tank” in the 80‘s and 90‘s technology was the key strategic resource in the development of wealth. In a departure from Michael Porter's "cluster strategy," dominant today, Kozmetsky was focused on technology structure, systems strategy, and “customer need.” He believed that technology is the key resource in competitive strategy but that resource flows from the demand side--from human need. For a contemporary example of the technological structure of cyberspace, see Sekora's Central Texas Digital Convergence Technology Resource Map, 2005 Digital (Page 20-21). To learn more about the implication of this analysis to what's next in high technology economic development, read Technopoly. According to Sekora today:
“...the United States must make the shift from economic-based planning back to technology-based planning. Technology-based planning is what was used to build the United States into a superpower. The focus on creating the very best products and services -- using advanced and revolutionary technologies to satisfy customer needs -- is what kept American companies competitive. This technology-based focus on planning is now being used by China and India to build themselves into superpowers.” (Articles)
In 2012, people, capital and information flow among these Central Texas cities which are all within easy driving distance by automobile (~3.0 hours). It was in the 1980's and it is today an interaction in the greater San Antonio-College Station-Austin-Copperas Cove-Waco research triangle that gives rise to the innovation economy of Central Texas. Today, the Central Texas Research Triangle is once again on the move. This time, the focus is broader than computer hardware and software and includes regional innovation focused on the intersection of nano technology, bio technology, cyber and copy-right-based digital arts.
Unpublished work from Digital Convergence Initiative (Brazell, 2005)
San Antonio's early start in computers dates to the establishment of the Air Force Security Service (1948), Harry Armstrong's panel on "Aeromedical implications of space flight" (1948) establishing the city as the center of aerospace medicine, and ultimately Kennedy's "tossing the cap over the wall of space" in 1963. Flowing from three space age entrepreneurs, Datapoint in San Antonio, Texas would become a Shakespearean tragedy for San Antonio's high tech entrepreneurial aspirations; however, Datapoint would ultimately define the methods, processes and languages of the software at the heart of personal computing, the Internet and critical infrastructure in the 21st century.
Datapoint (Computer Terminal Corporation) in the late 1960's, 70's and 80's was the nexus of the computer industry in Central Texas. Datapoint was founded by three members of the space program: Gus Roche, Phil Ray and Jack Frassanito as well as Jim Evert. Datapoint would grow to become a Fortune 500 company with approximately 9,000 employees and offices in 27 countries. At its height, Datapoint would house 1 million square feet of office, R&D and factory space. Datapoint balanced industrial design, computer usability (ease of use) and commercial business applications to invent the first “personal computer.” Pictured Left to Right - Phil Ray, Vic Poor, Jim Evert, and Gus Roche.
With customer experience as a number one priority, the company pioneered concepts we take for granted today from the simple ability to execute a search at Yahoo (client server computing)-to-video conferencing (PC-to-PC)-to-turning on water and electrical services in our homes and businesses. Datapoint changed the world including:
- Creating the first self-contained computer designed for a single user.
- x86 integrated chip series from Intel is derived from the design of the Datapoint 2200 and now the foundation of virtually every smart phone and PC on the planet.
- The de facto standard for network configuration is the Star network topology derived from Datapoint's ARCNET.
- The communications protocol enabling PC-based industrial control is also derived from ARCNET enabling everything from electrical grids, power plants, chemical plants and even water systems.
The proof is in the putting and Datapoint has a very strong story because of Patent #224,415, filed November 27, 1970. This is the world's first Personal Computer (PC). The Datapoint 2200 sold in 1970 was the first self-contained system with a computer, memory, bulk storage, monitor, and keyboard all in a single desktop enclosure. As it turns out, Datapoint manufactured and sold the first personal computer, in 1970, when Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were in primary school.
John Frassanito explains the origin of the company and the PC:
“Gus and I were “named inventors” on the patent of the 2200 and 3300 and Gus and I wrote the business plan, developed the business model, and presentation that secured the financing. I also wrote the Mnemonics business plan.
Once we secured the funding we brought in the development team was implemented by a small group of engineers, consultants, and programmers to include Bob McClure, Vic Poor, Jonathan Schmidt, Dick Norman, Harry Pyle and others.”
(Email interview, John Frassanito, Dec. 27, 2011)
DigiBarn TV: 3-CTC Datapoint terminal industrial video (early-mid 1970s)
ARCNET is at the heart of personal computer-based industrial control. ARCNET is used by many utilities including water waste water processing; power generation, power distribution and power consumption; science and technology R&D; manufacturing; and oil, gas and chemical processing and distribution. ARCNET is a protocol for industrial control and process automation, a personal computer-based control framework used for cyber physical computing (Read ROBOT AGE & INTERNET 2.0). Michael Fischer explains why ARCNET is an important foundational networking technology today:
"ARC stands for Attached Resource Computing. “ARC was designed and created at Datapoint by Vic Poor, Jonathan Schmidt, John Murphy, Gordon Peterson and Harry Pyle starting in 1975. ARCNET was not only the first LAN on the market, but was part of a comprehensive network operating system (DOS/ARC) that provided remote file access (and pioneered such access via mapped disk drive designators), printer sharing, etc. ARCNET was the first token-based LAN, andthe first LAN to use a star topology with repeaters (hubs). Token passing became popular on ring networks (IBM token ring, Pronet, Prime's Ringnet, Apollo's Domain network, IEEE 802.5, FDDI). Star topology has become the de facto way that all modern LANs are wired.”
(Michael Fischer, email interview)
The author introduced John Frassanito and Michael Fischer, two members of the Datapoint team, to Dr. David Thornburg, one of the first 10 members of the Xerox PARC team. XEROX PARC is widely regarded as one of the originators of the modern PC from the mouse to the Graphical User Interface (windows). Dr. Thornburg’s response to discussion with Frassinato:
“As one of the original members of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), I have always been proud of the contributions we made to the field of personal computing in the 1970′s, driven, in part, by earlier ideas developed by Alan Kay and others. Kay’s “Dynabook” was a vision of a mobile computing device (much like today’s tablets) but it required technology that was unavailable at the time. Our device, the Alto, was split between two boxes – one for the computer hardware, and another for the display. It is safe to say that much of the look and feel of computing follows a straight line path from our lab to the present.
But, was PARC the real home of personal computing? Perhaps in its implementation (that was part of our charter), but in fact others had been thinking about the idea before PARC was created. As described in an article in ComputerWorld (http://bit.ly/LeCmj) a group of thinkers (and doers) in San Antonio, Texas may have been the first to think seriously about the design of a computer that would belong to individuals, not sitting in a corporate “computer room” somewhere. Their company, CTC (later changed to Datapoint) was in the computer terminal business building what we used to call “glass teletypes”. These desktop boxes had a display and keyboard and were designed as input/output devices for centralized computers. Many of us using these devices, referred to them as “dumb terminals,” because they seemingly lacked the power to do any computing on their own.
What we didn’t see at the time was that these devices were designed to be Trojan horses. The were programmable at some level, and could easily have been morphed into true personal computers. The design of the Intel x86 class of microprocessors grew out of the thinking behind the Datapoint terminal, and the founders of the company were keenly interested in building a computer, but lacked the financial support to bring a separate terminal to market.
So why didn’t this device take off?
Well, the “computing” aspect of their device was not part of the original business plan. The seeds were there, and had even been planted at Intel (where they bloomed into a huge business.) As for Datapoint itself, it fell on hard times and faded from the scene.
Faded, but not forgotten. Yes, we at PARC may have invented modern personal computing as you know it, but we need to acknowledge the contributions of others – especially the CTC team who just may have been the first to think that you and I deserved our very own computers.”
On behalf of Datapoint, Michael explains Datapints first self-contained computer designed for a single user--the PC:
"In a paper on the history of personal workstations, Chuck Thacker wrote that definition of the Alto began in mid-1972, that implementation began in November, 1972, and that two prototypes were operational in April, 1973. Therefore, by the time Alto was designed well over 1000 copies of the Datapoint 2200 had been manufactured and sold.
Note that it is necessary to stretch the concept of "self-contained" to cover the Alto, which had its processor, memory, and disk drive in floor-standing pedestal (roughly 19" W x 25" H x 30" D), with the separately packaged monitor and keyboard(+mouse) on an adjacent table or desk. If we are willing to accept systems designed for use by a single user, but having a floor-standing CPU+memory separate from the single-user interaction equipment, there are many earlier examples. The oldest of which I am aware that was marketed as single-user was the IBM 610 "Auto-Point Computer" which was introduced in 1957 (see http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_4506VV4001.html). The LINC, designed by Wesley Clark at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the early 1960s, and later (but still in the 1960s) manufactured and sold by DEC, was a single-user system with an equipment rack and desktop user interaction equipment.
If desk-side and/or desk-style, floor-standing "all-in-one" systems are considered, what may be the earliest example of a highly-successful product designed for a single user (after the advent of timesharing and operating systems that supported multiprogramming) was the IBM 1130, introduced in February, 1965. (See http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/1130/1130_intro.html, although the photos there show a highly-expanded configuration with two pedestals, the vast majority of 1130s ended just to the left of the keyboard.) In fact, the pedestal of the 1130 was nearly the same size and configuration as that of the Alto, with a single, 14", front-loading disk drive at the top front (except behind a metal door on the 1130). The 1130s were widely deployed, AND USED, as single-user machines.
When looking for the first "PC," in the modern sense of the term, it is appropriate to limit consideration to self-contained DESKTOP systems, where the whole system is small enough to fit on the user's desk and be carried by a single person (when not cabled). The first system that qualifies is the Datapoint 2200. Furthermore, the Datapoint2200 actually WAS self-contained, with processor, memory, bulk storage, monitor, and keyboard all in a single, desktop enclosure. On the other hand, the original IBM PC was also self-contained, but rather was a processor+memory enclosure with separate monitor and keyboard -- at least all of its pieces would fit on the desktop and each could be carried by one person (I believe the first company to offer an all-in-one IBM-style PC was Compaq, in 1982.)
(Email, Michael Fischer, December 20, 2011)
Lamont Wood, Datapoint PR man (1980-1982), just released a new oral history called Datapoint: The Lost Story of the Texans Who Invented The Personal Computer Revolution.
Image - Courtesy John Frassanito
It seems the Space Station, pursuit of Mars and even the “energy cloud”--space-based solar have all occupied Jack Frassanito’s imagination and hours of play at the computer since his wild entrepreneurial ride at Datapoint. Jack set up his own firm in Clearlake, Texas, near NASA, in 1975 and worked on the design and visualization of the space shuttle and space station projects. He is now working with San Antonio's Hu Davis, Apollo 11 Chief Engineer for Eagle (Lunar Capsule 5) on designs for an energy cloud--space based solar power to harvest energy from the Sun for humanity (Read more in Time Pacing the Future).
