JUNE, 1966 - DPI unveiled SOLAR, the first all-electronic Data Collection System at the O'Hare Inn, in Chicago, IL. to representatives from Western Electric, U. S. Steel, and Automatic Electric. The 1204 Multifunction Terminals and the 2102 Processor demonstrated a system concept consisting of terminals, human engineered for ease of operation and designed to exist in the harsh factory floor environment connected via simple 2-wire lines to the controlling processor which provided the transaction data editing and validation, and recording of the EDP required record formats on magnetic tape while the factory worker was at the terminal and could provide any error corrections.

OCTOBER, 1966 - The first public demonstration of Solar at the BEMA Show in Chicago.

NOVEMBER, 1966 - The first shipment. Sent to Globe Union in Milwaukee on a trial basis.

JANUARY, 1967 - The first shipment. Sent to Globe Union in Milwaukee on a trial basis.

APRIL, 1967 - The G.E. Bloomington system went live.

MAY, 1967 - The second system went live at the General Dynamics, Fort Worth Plant. Within a year this initial system was upgraded to (3) 2103 Processors, triple terminated.

1967-1969 - 38 Systems were installed.  For a trip down that memory click here.  Note that an NCR plant was the fifth customer installed.  It was this experience by NCR that led to their decision to buy DPI almost nine years later.

JUNE, 1968 - The first on-line interface to an IBM 360 was installed at Grumman Aircraft in Bethpage, Long Island, New York.

SEPTEMBER, 1970 - The first system with disk file capability was installed at Rockwell in Downey, CA. This system also contained the first interface to an IBM 360 running IMS.

1968-1972 - IBM redesigned their system twice. Singer Friden went out of the market, redesigned, re-entered the market and then closed down. CDC tried to redesign, failed and went out of the market.

JULY, 1973 - The first 3270 Emulation Interface was installed at Caterpillar Corporation in Peoria, IL.

JANUARY, 1976 - The MIT Multifunction CRT Terminal based system was installed at the McDonnell Douglas Company in Long Beach, CA.

JUNE, 1976 - NCR purchased Data Pathing, Inc.

September, 1991 - AT&T purchased NCR.

April, 1992 - Bill Hill finally had to throw away the last of his DCOS/AIDE Listings, Product Specs, Logic Diagrams, and  many other software and hardware documentation to lighten the load for the move from Dayton, OH to Morristown, TN. He cried a lot!!!