During the early 1960's, the factory data collection systems consisted of terminals with electromechanical badge and punched card readers plus knobs to turn or levers to push to a set of numbers for entry as variable data. The terminals were connected by heavy, stiff, and thick cable to receiving units that punched the raw data into paper tape or cards. Later this punched media would be read into the main frame for the editing and correction runs to finally create clean data for the batch processing programs which updated master files and produced the reports needed by management to profitably run the plant. Though this sounds cumbersome and expensive, it was still much better than the very common method of having the workers write their results on pieces of paper, collect that paper, and have the keypunch operators try to decipher the handwriting to create the punched cards that were entered into the edit and correction runs.

Roy Score installed many of these systems as the top salesman of Friden Collectadata systems. Although Roy was not computer knowledgeable, he was creative and observant enough to have many better ideas than were being used. Since Friden would not implement his thoughts, he founded DPI with the following as some of the major system requirements:

1. Cabling was and still is one of the major expenses and problems to install. Instead of pulling the 90 pair cables of the day, it seemed only reasonable that the telephone lines that were already all over a plant could be used. Data transmission over two wire lines up to 12,000 feet with no modems, terminators, or branching restrictions was a requirement met by the DPI T/R line. In many cases, pairs from the cabling used by the system being replaced were used for an additional savings.

2. The dirt, grease, and sometimes almost metallic atmosphere in the plants where terminals reside created havoc as the badge and card media with its attached garbage was dragged across the mechanical readers. The DPI terminals would be built with all electronic components, using optical readers, and with none of the parts open to the outside other than the slot for inserting the badge. The terminal contained only one moving part which was used to scan the punched card. The card was held stationary on a flat glass plate outside the unit while the scanner on the inside moved the light source and photocells to read the data. The badge was read by stationary photocells in the badge slot. The badge slot was vertical to allow any dirt that might enter to fall through.

3. In those days the typical factory worker was not familiar with nor trusted computers. Terminals were treated roughly and quite often used by very strong men wearing heavy gloves. We referred to him as "Thumbs Handleman" who could push his finger through a concrete wall at will. The first DPI terminals had large buttons with a two pound force required to push them.

4. When Data Collection systems eliminated the time card by using the employee's badge, the badge became very important to that employee. Without it, his pay was threatened. So they became very upset if the badge was not within their control. The Friden badge readers held the badge by running a pin through a hole in the badge. At least one case of badge retrieval by channel lock pliers was known. The badge in DPI terminals was held by rubber bumpers so that if the system did not release the badge as it should, the operator could retrieve the badge with no damage to the reader or his temper.