Diablo Data Systems was a division of

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...

created by the acquisition of Diablo Systems Inc. for US$29 million in 1972,Xerox Factbook 2003-2004
, p.43 a company that had been founded in 1969 by George E. Comstock, Charles L. Waggoner and others. The company was the first to release a daisy wheel printer, in 1970. The company was best known for the HyType I and HyType II

typewriter A typewriter is a Machine, mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of Button (control), keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an i ...

-based

computer terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. Most early computers only had a front panel to input or display ...

s, the Diablo 630 daisy wheel printers, as well as removable hard disk drives that were used in the

Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto is a computer system developed at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) in the 1970s. It is considered one of the first workstations or personal computers, and its development pioneered many aspects of modern computing. It featu ...

computer and resold by DEC as the RK02 and RK03.

Overview

The ''RK02'' and ''RK03'' drives that ''Diablo'' made for

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until ...

(DEC) was described by DEC as "stores digital data in serial format on IBM 2315-type disk cartridges." They differed from what DEC later manufactured for itself, as the "RK04 and RK05 use

voice coil A voice coil (consisting of a former, collar, and winding) is the coil of wire attached to the apex of a loudspeaker cone. It provides the motive force to the cone by the reaction of a magnetic field to the current passing through it. Th ...

head positioning, and the RK02 and RK03 use rack and pinion head positioning." The RK02/RK04 were ''low density'' and stored 600K

16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two ...

words A word is a basic element of language that carries meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its ...

, whereas the RK03/RK05 store 1.2 megabytes of 16-bit words. By using "12 sectors of 128 words (low density) or 256 words (high density)" and "203

cylinders A cylinder () has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infinite ...

of 2 tracks per cylinder" the capacity was 1.22 megabytes or 2.45 megabytes respectively. ''Diablo'' also made full computer systems as well as printers. Additionally, Diablo released terminal systems featuring their printing technology, including the Model 1560 Matrix Terminal. This model could connect directly to a remote machine using the Bell 103A, 113A, 202 and 212 standards, and supported a nominal 1200 baud transfer rate. It used a microprocessor in combination with mechanical linkages to allow more advanced editing and data entry.

Diablo systems

The ''Xerox Diablo 3100'' was among the complete computing systems sold by ''Diablo''.

Diablo printers

In 1970 a team at Diablo Systems led by engineer Dr Andrew Gabor developed the first commercially successful daisy wheel printer, a device that was faster and more flexible than IBM's Selectric devices, being capable of 30 cps (characters per second), whereas the Selectric operated at 13.4 cps. Dr Andrew Gabor was issued two patents for the inventio
U.S. Patents 3,954,163
an
3,663,880
Among the models for which ''Diablo'' was known were the ''9R87201'', the ''HyType I'' (1973) and the ''HyType II''. Some of the printwheels were plastic, others were "metalized." Also included were the Diablo 630 and 635.

Overview

Diablo systems

Diablo printers

References

Further reading