Jump to page content

Data Electronics Corp

Contents

Overview

Data Electronics Corporation was founded on the 30th of June 1969, in Massachusetts, and was involuntarily dissolved on the 10th of January 1979. Very little is known about this organisation.

Patents

The only patents located for Data Electronics Corporation relate to keyboards. The first two patents, filed in 1970, relate to wired inductive encoding keyboards. These two patents are curious in that they find fault with every switch type available on the market but offer no alternative to any of them; the first patent notes:

Although the reed switch system represents an improvement over the use of mechanical switches and springs, the cost of reed switches is relatively high and reliability is still a problem. The encoding system, generally a diode matrix, which is usually employed with either mechanical switches or reed-relay is not only costly, but has a questionable level of reliability due to the large number of elements required in the matrix.

The second patent contains the same passage, except that “reed-relay” is used instead of “reed switch” in error (although one such error remained in the first patent’s corresponding paragraph). The wired inductive encoding replaces the diode matrix, but the patent leaves the choice of switch open. The transformer cores “serve as the encoding elements and as the interface between the mechanical keys and the electronic circuitry to be described.”

Their third and final patent describes a mechanical keyswitch.

Patent Title Filed Published Product
US 3668696 Ring core keyboard entry device 1970-09-28 1972-06-06 Wired inductive encoding system
US 3688307 Ring core keyboard entry device 1970-09-28 1972-08-29 Wired inductive encoding system
US 3924090 Switch assembly with reciprocating cams 1974-09-16 1975-12-02 Mechanical keyswitch, single or double pole

Keyboards

MK-37/2040

This model was advertised in June 1971. There was no photograph, and details were brief. The characteristics were described thus:

Features include the full, 128 AS CII codes, 12 additional function keys, two-key rollover and error and data lockout.

It is possible that this model used wired inductive encoding, on the basis that this is what Data Electronics had patented up to this point, but this is by no means certain.

MK-28M

This is a “ruggedized” model, also not illustrated in the advertisement, which notes that this model “uses a standard 5-level Baudot code.” It could instead be ordered with Fieldata or ASCII output.

Documentation