SWTPC

The U.S. company SWTPC started in 1964 as DEMCO (Daniel E. Meyer Company). It was incorporated in 1967 as Southwest Technical Products Corporation of San Antonio, Texas. They produced a wide variety of electronics kits, and later complete computer systems.

In the 1960s, many hobbyist electronics magazines such as Popular Electronics and Radio-Electronics published construction articles, for many of which the author would arrange for a company to assemble a kit of parts to build the project. Daniel Meyer published several popular projects and successfully sold his kits. He soon started selling kits for other authors such as Don Lancaster and Louis Garner. Between 1967 and 1971 SWTPC sold kits for over 50 Popular Electronics articles. Most of these kits were intended for audio use, such as hi-fi, utility amplifiers, and test equipment such as a function generator based on the Intersil ICL8038.

In 1972 SWTPC had a large enough collection of kits to justify printing a 32 page catalog. In January 1975 SWTPC introduced a computer terminal kit, the "TV Typewriter", or CT-1024. By November 1975 they were delivering complete computer kits based on Motorola MPUs. They were very successful for the next 5 or so years and grew to over 100 people. Most of the companies that were selling a computer kit in 1975 were out of business by 1978. Around 1987, SWTPC moved to point of sale computer systems. The original company was terminated about 1990 and became Point Systems. This new company lasted only a few years.
SWTPC 6800
SWTPC 6800 (2)

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