Hot on the heals of the 8080-based Altair was Southwest Technical Products Corporation (SWTP) and their 6800-based computer. And just like MITS getting on the cover of Popular Electronics, SWTP got theirs on, too. (Yes, I still have my copies of both along with my year one and two issues of Byte. Damn, I’m old!)
Based in San Antonio, TX and started by Dan Meyer in the mid-60’s to sell kits of projects he wrote about in Popular Electronics and Radio Electronics, he also sold kits based on articles written by the ever prolific Don Lancaster and others.
Yes, Uncle Dave cut his electronics teeth on kits from SWTP. The first complete project I built was their Theramin in 1967. Over the following years, I built several of the audio amps, the preamp and one of the bench power supplies.
Here’s a scan of the about page from the first catalog I got from them in, I believe, 1967. The catalog was black and white on plain paper. And here’s my copy of what is either the January or June (based on the mailing label) ’76 catalog.
Here’s a guy who was even more into them than me with lots of info and scans of catalogs, some of which I still have. And surprise surprise, there’s a pretty good Wikipedia entry on the company.
One day you’ll be writing ‘Whatever happened to the Playstation 3?’
🙂
Hey if you have nostaliga for kit based electronics… You have have to plug Make magazine.
http://www.makezine.com/
cool logo
The first computer I can remember being in the house as a kid was a Heathkit my dad put together.
Hey, I built one of these!!
It worked great and didn’t require flipping buttons like my Altair 8800 did. Did require a VTM or teletype to talk to it which at that time was more expensive than the computer.
It’s in a museum now…
My first computer was a lowly trs-80 coco.
Old timers! My first was an IBM PS/2 from Walmart.
I actually owned a SWTP CT1024 TV Typewriter at one point; had it hooked up to an 8008 development system whose name escapes me. Sold them both at an Indianapolis Hamfest and bought a Digital Group Z80 computer, which was in turn sold at the Dayton Hamfest.
John – when are you going to get the latest ones updated on the “Whatever” page?
Tigersaurus?
thats a great product name!!
Wow – **old** product guide there – JCD, how much did that Theramin set you back?
#11: It set ME, not John, back $22.50 according to this page.
Sorry, wrong Dave – my bad.
I can remember lusting after one of these in the mid-70’s. Unfortunately, I never had enough money to purchase one (I didn’t even have enough for an ELF (http://www.jitterjunction.com/firstcomputer.htm) and had to wait another five years before getting my first computer.
lol i feel like such a noob – my first puter was a 386sx 33.
Thanks for the reframation #16
WOW!! that picture brings back memories.
My very first computer was this one. It was the 6800 with 8k of ram which I upgraded to 16k and then bought the 8k BASIC system on cassette tape.
While I still have my 1802 Super Elf and apple 2 plus I don’t remember what happened to this system.
Strangely booting the 8k basic took just a little longer than WindowXP (joke..but not really)
hehehe…boy did that pic bring back the memories…solder burns, lots of swearing when the wire ties went missing.
Thanks, Dave!
Wozniac and the Apple I an II put them out of business.
I did my masters project in 197? Using a swtpco 6800 kit, I built an interface based on their pia board and software of my own design, written in machine code by me, assembled with their assembler software.
Oh, what I did with it! I built a system for testing and storing data on Intel proto-production bubble memory chips. Intel did supply them on a driver board with requisite magnetics already on-board. My advisor thought I was crazy (i think) but since I was older than she, I made out all right.
I was forty at the time.