Editing Datapoint (section)

==Boom period: 1973-1980==
Despite the success of the 2200, the company lacked the finances and skills to manage its own production, and was hence quickly running out of cash. After Ray and Roche investigated and then dismissed selling the company, they agreed to a deal to gain an investment from [[TRW Inc.|TRW]]. However, after realising that his company would be competing with major customer IBM, the President of TRW pulled out of the deal, and renegotiated it as the purchase of overseas manufacturing rights. Combined with other institutional share sales, this raised the required $7M to finance the development of a new product.

However, on investigative audit the new investors found that Datapoint's corporate accounts hid various holes and challenges. After forcing the resignation of the company's first chairman, San Antonio insurance salesman Gerald Mazur, they appointed [[Harold O'Kelley]], who had an engineering background and had been a vice-president of the electronics firm [[Harris Corporation]], and formally renamed the firm Datapoint.

O'Kelley immediately realised that the TRW deal was fatally flawed. Effectively, it allowed TRW to manufacture outside [[North America]], but then import the product and sell directly against Datapoint in North America. After renegotiations, O'Kelley and TRW agreed a new contract which allowed TRW to market the product outside North America, but not to manufacture it. He then raised an additional $8 million via a third [[Wall Street]]-backed public offering, with a plan to raise sales from $18M to $100M within five years. As a result, under the chairmanship of O'Kelley, between 1973 and 1981, revenues grew at a 40% pace, with sales surpassing $100M in 1977, reaching $450M by 1981.

This growth was only enabled through the development of various products through the partnership between Ray, Roche, Poor and Pyle. These included Datashare, a concept that allowed many terminals to communicate with each other independent of a mainframe. In 1976, Datapoint introduced a machine that automatically routed outgoing telephone calls onto the cheapest available line, there by liberalising the US Telecoms market after the [[Breakup of the Bell System|AT&T breakup]]. It then introduced telephone directory software and word processing programs, as well as electronic mail functions.

Datapoint acquired pioneering hard disk drive manufacturer [[Data Disc]] in March 1977 for $2&nbsp;million.<ref>{{cite journal | date=March 7, 1977 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ySBFs12hzSkC&pg=PA48 | title=Acquisitions | journal=Computerworld | publisher=CW Communications | volume=XI | issue=10 | page=48 | via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

Other Datapoint inventions were [[ARCnet]], invented in 1977, originally called ARC (Attached Resource Computer), which was an early [[Token passing|token-passing]] [[local area network|local area network (LAN)]] protocol, and the [[PL/B]] [[high-level programming language]], which was originally called ''Databus'' (from '''''Data'''point '''bus'''iness language'') and ran under the ''Datashare'' multi-user interpreter. Later developments included a '''M'''apped '''I'''ntelligent '''D'''isc '''S'''ystem (MIDS) which networked 2200 series terminals to a single mass storage disc operating system and enhanced Distributed Data Processing. Proprietary operating systems included DOS and RMS, and Datapoint later moved its hardware to be based on Intel 386 CPUs.

ARCnet was briefly superseded by ARCnetplus, which provided throughput of 20&nbsp;Mbit/s and include options such as LiteLink which used infra-red technology to link systems in adjacent buildings. This was launched around the time 100&nbsp;Mbit/s Ethernet arrived so never really took much market share, even though ARCnet used simple, slender co-axial cable, not Ethernet's thick yellow cable, and despite having a slower transmission-speed had superior throughput, and was much simpler to configure and operate (servers could be connected and disconnected without taking the network down or reconfiguring).

Datapoint also developed and patented one of the earliest [[picture-in-picture]] implementations of [[videoconferencing]] called MINX ('''M'''ultimedia '''I'''nformation '''N'''etwork e'''X'''change). It was also part of the first video visitation and arraignment systems. It has been suggested they made more money from lawsuits over patent infringements than through sales of the product.

Datapoint sought to expand in the Unix market, originally partnering with Charles River Data Systems in 1984. A renewed effort was initiated in 1988 through a three-year agreement with Norsk Computer Industri (NCI), a small Norwegian-based company, to supply multiprocessor systems based on the Motorola 68020 and 68030 CPUs.<ref name="unigramx19880206_datapoint">{{ cite news | url=https://archive.org/details/UnigramX1988160-211/page/n30/mode/1up | title=Datapoint Looks to Norway for New Unix Push | work=Unigram/X | date=6 February 1988 | access-date=10 May 2025 | pages=1 }}</ref> NCI's products were introduced as the SX100, 200 and 300, acting as Unix servers on ARCnet local area networks. Datapoint also demonstrated its DX200 video server at a Uniforum event in early 1988.<ref name="unigramx19880220_datapoint">{{ cite news | url=https://archive.org/details/UnigramX1988160-211/page/n43/mode/1up | title=Datapoint Unveils Its Norwegian Unix Servers for ARCnet | work=Unigram/X | date=20 February 1988 | access-date=10 May 2025 | pages=2 }}</ref> However, this agreement was reportedly terminated in June 1989 after Olivetti, a competitor, acquired control of Scanvest Ring, a significant shareholder in NCI. Datapoint replaced the NCI models with a new range of DX models based on the 68030 CPU and [[VMEbus]].<ref name="unigramx19890528_datapoint">{{ cite news | url=https://archive.org/details/UnigramX1989212-262/page/n129/mode/1up | title=Datapoint Abandons NCI Pact for New DX Range | work=Unigram/X | date=28 May 1989 | access-date=10 May 2025 | pages=4 }}</ref>