Daniel Meyer
Encyclopedia
SWTPC
The U.S. company SWTPC started in 1964 as DEMCO . It was incorporated in 1967 as Southwest Technical Products Corporation of San Antonio, Texas...
. He was born in New Braunfels, Texas
New Braunfels, Texas
New Braunfels is a city in Comal and Guadalupe counties in the U.S. state of Texas that is a principal city of the metropolitan area. Braunfels means "brown rock" in German; the city is named for Braunfels, in Germany. The city's population was 57,740 as of the 2010 census, up 58% from the 2000...
and raised in San Marcos, Texas
San Marcos, Texas
San Marcos is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, and is the seat of Hays County. Located within the metropolitan area, the city is located on the Interstate 35 corridor—between Austin and San Antonio....
where he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics in 1957 from Southwest Texas State
Texas State University–San Marcos
Texas State University–San Marcos is a doctoral-granting university located in San Marcos, Texas...
. After college he married Helen Wentz, moved to San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
and became a research engineer in the electrical engineering department of Southwest Research Institute
Southwest Research Institute
Southwest Research Institute , headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development organizations in the United States...
.
He soon started writing hobbyist articles. The first was in Electronics World (May 1960) and later he had a 2 part cover feature for Radio-Electronics
Radio-Electronics
Radio-Electronics was an American electronics magazine that was published under various titles from 1929 to 2003. Hugo Gernsback started it as Radio-Craft in July 1929. The title was changed to Radio-Electronics in October 1948 and again to Electronics Now in July 1992. In January 2000 it was...
(October, November 1962). The March 1963 issue of Popular Electronics
Popular Electronics
Popular Electronics was an American magazine started by Ziff-Davis Publishing in October 1954 for electronics hobbyists and experimenters. It soon became the "World's Largest-Selling Electronics Magazine". The circulation was 240,151 in April 1957 and 400,000 by 1963. Ziff-Davis published Popular...
featured his ultrasonic listening device on the cover. The projects would often require a printed circuit board
Printed circuit board
A printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board or etched wiring...
or specialized components that were not available at the local electronics parts store. Readers could purchase them directly from Dan Meyer.
Dan Meyer saw the business opportunity in providing circuit boards and parts for the Popular Electronics projects. In January 1964 he left Southwest Research Institute to start an electronics kit company. He continued to write articles and ran the mail order kit business from his home garage in San Antonio, Texas. By 1965 he was providing the kits for other authors such as Lou Garner. In 1967 he sold a kit for Don Lancaster
Don Lancaster
Donald E. Lancaster is a prolific author, inventor, and microcomputer pioneer best known for his magazine columns. He is also known for his "TV Typewriter" dumb terminal project, his book on technical entrepreneurship The Incredible Secret Money Machine, and his work on and advocacy of early...
's "IC-67 Metal Locator". In early 1967 Meyer moved his growing business from his home to a new building on a 3 acres (12,140.6 m²) site in San Antonio. The Daniel E. Meyer Company (DEMCO) became Southwest Technical Products Corporation (SWTPC
SWTPC
The U.S. company SWTPC started in 1964 as DEMCO . It was incorporated in 1967 as Southwest Technical Products Corporation of San Antonio, Texas...
) that fall.
The concept of selling a kit based on a magazine article had been around since the early days of radio. Daniel Meyer perfected the process. In 1967, Popular Electronics had 6 articles by Dan Meyer and 4 by Don Lancaster. Seven of that year's cover stories featured kits sold by SWTPC. In the years 1966 to 1971 SWTPC's authors wrote 64 articles and had 25 cover stories in Popular Electronics. (Don Lancaster alone had 23 articles and 10 were cover stories.) The San Antonio Express-News
San Antonio Express-News
The San Antonio Express-News is the daily newspaper of San Antonio, Texas. It is ranked as the third-largest daily newspaper in the state of Texas in terms of circulation, and is one of the leading news sources of South Texas, with offices in Austin, Brownsville, Laredo, and Mexico City...
did a feature story on Southwest Technical Products in November 1972. "Meyer built his mail-order business from scratch to more than $1 million in sales in six years." The company was shipping 100 kits a day from 18000 square feet (1,672.3 m²) of buildings.
In the first 10 years SWTPC the most popular products were audio kits followed by test equipment. There was also that very 1970s stuff like color organs that would synchronize colored lights with music and strobe lights. Dan Meyer developed a series of audio power amplifiers known as Tigers. These amps are still in use today. Don Lancaster developed a series of decimal readout counters and voltmeters that used the latest technology.
In mid 1975 Dan Meyer asked one of his engineers, Gary Kay, to design a computer based on the Motorola 6800 design kit. The first deliveries were in November 1975. In June 1976 SWTPC introduced the AC-30 Cassette Interface for data storage and the PR-40 printer. You could now get a complete computer system for about $1500.
Many of the early hobbyist computer company were founded by engineers who did not know how to run a business. They would fold in a year or so. SWTPC had been successful in the kit business for over a decade so they could deliver working products.
Floppy Disk systems, full feature terminals, and many peripherals were added in 1977. The bus structure was called the SS-50
SS-50 Bus
The SS-50 bus was an early computer bus designed as a part of the SWTPC 6800 Computer System that used the Motorola 6800 CPU. The SS-50 motherboard would have around seven 50-pin connectors for CPU and memory boards plus eight 30-pin connectors for I/O boards...
and soon many other vendors were making add in cards and complete systems. In 1979 SWTPC introduced a new line based on the Motorola 6809
Motorola 6809
The Motorola 6809 is an 8-bit microprocessor CPU from Motorola, designed by Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced 1978...
processor. These systems were produced until the mid-1980s. By then the IBM PC was dominating the personal computer world and SWTPC shifted to point of sale systems.