Informer Computer Terminals, Inc., originally Informer, Inc., and later Informer Computer Systems, Inc., was a privately held American computer company active from 1971 to 2007. It manufactured

data terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical computer hardware, 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 ...

s that could communicate with

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

s and

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a type of general-purpose computer mostly developed from the mid-1960s, built significantly smaller and sold at a much lower price than mainframe computers . By 21st century-standards however, a mini is ...

s, mainly those manufactured by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

and

Digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

. It was originally based in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, California; in the early 1980s, it moved to

Laguna Beach Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish for "Lagoon") is a city in Orange County, California, United States. Located in Southern California along the Pacific Ocean, this seaside resort city has a mild year-round climate, scenic coves, and environ ...

, and in the late 1980s, to Garden Grove.

Corporate history

Informer, Inc. was co-founded in

, California, in 1971 by Donald Allen Domike (1927–2017). Originally located in the far corner of

West Los Angeles West Los Angeles is an area within the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. The residential and commercial neighborhood is divided by the Interstate 405 freeway, and each side is sometimes treated as a distinct neighborhood, mapped ...

, Informer moved to

Westchester, Los Angeles Westchester is a neighborhood in the City of Los Angeles and the South Bay region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is home to Los Angeles International Airport, Loyola Marymount University, Otis College of Art and Design ...

, in fall 1976, occupying a facility as their headquarters, manufacturing plant, and research and development laboratory. Informer in the mid-1970s appointed Bryon Cole as president of the company and Wilfred "Will" R. Little as vice president of marketing. By 1981, Little replaced Cole as president. Informer in 1976 manufactured glass terminals with small

CRT CRT or Crt most commonly refers to: * Cathode-ray tube, a display * Critical race theory, an academic framework of analysis CRT may also refer to: Law * Charitable remainder trust, United States * Civil Resolution Tribunal, Canada * Columbia ...

s as well as traditional keyboard-send-and-receive and receive-only teleprinters. It achieved sales of US$1 million in fiscal year 1976, projecting a doubling of sales for the following year. By 1981, the company had achieved yearly sales in excess of $10 million. The company established ten branch offices in the United States by that year; at some point in the mid-1980s, they also opened a Canadian subsidiary in

Richmond, British Columbia Richmond is a city in the coastal Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Mainly a suburban city, it occupies almost the entirety of Lulu Island (excluding Queensborough, New Westminster, Queensborough), between the two estuarine dis ...

. Its products in the early 1980s comprised not only glass terminals and teleprinters but also

barcode reader A barcode reader or barcode scanner is an optical scanner that can read printed barcodes and send the data they contain to computer. Like a flatbed scanner, it consists of a light source, a lens, and a light sensor for translating optical impul ...

s and batch terminals. Informer's terminals were used for data entry, data monitoring,

remote job entry Remote job entry, or Remote Batch, is the procedure for sending requests for non-interactive data processing tasks ( jobs) to mainframe computers from remote workstations, and by extension the process of receiving the output from such jobs at a re ...

, and software programming. Following struggling sales in the mid-1980s, the company appointed Malcolm K. Green, formerly of

Emulex Emulex Corporation was an American computer hardware company active from 1978 to 2015. The company was a provider of computer network connectivity, monitoring and management hardware and software. The company's I/O connectivity offerings, inclu ...

as president and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

. Green shortly thereafter relocated the company's headquarters to

Garden Grove, California Garden Grove is a city in northern Orange County, California, United States. The population was 171,949 at the 2020 census. State Route 22, also known as the Garden Grove Freeway, passes through the city in an east–west direction. The west ...

. By the early 1990s the company had renamed itself to Informer Computer Systems, Inc. In 1994, the company spun off its local area and

dial-up Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

networking security software operations as Informer Data Security, Inc. Bradley Little was named president of the new company. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the company began orienting their products toward state

emergency service Emergency services and rescue services are organizations that ensure public safety, security, and health by addressing and resolving different emergencies. Some of these agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies, while oth ...

s, manufacturing terminals and call-tracking systems for 9-1-1 call centers, though they still offered general-purpose terminals as well. Edward P. Dailey replaced Little as president and CEO around this time. In 2000, the company employed 20 in Garden Grove. Informer went defunct in 2007.

Notable products

In May 1990, the company unveiled the Informer 213PT, a portable terminal that also doubles as a

PC-compatible An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central pro ...

computer, complete with an

i386 The Intel 386, originally released as the 80386 and later renamed i386, is the third-generation x86 architecture microprocessor from Intel. It was the first 32-bit processor in the line, making it a significant evolution in the x86 archite ...

processor and

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

3.3 in

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

. The 213PT contains a 9,600-bit/s V.32 modem that establishes connections with

IBM mainframe IBM mainframes are large computer systems produced by IBM since 1952. During the 1960s and 1970s, IBM dominated the computer market with the 7000 series and the later System/360, followed by the System/370. Current mainframe computers in IBM' ...

s using the

3270 terminal The IBM 3270 is a family of block oriented display and printer computer terminals introduced by IBM in 1971 and normally used to communicate with IBM mainframes. The 3270 was the successor to the IBM 2260 display terminal. Due to the text c ...

protocol. Switching between terminal and PC modes is achieved via a single keystroke. In PC mode, the computer relies on a host server to provide DOS applications, as it lacks any

drive bays A drive bay is a standard-sized area for adding hardware to a computer. Most drive bays are fixed to the inside of a case, but some can be removed. Over the years since the introduction of the IBM PC, it and its compatibles have had many form f ...

for mass storage, including

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...

s and

hard disk A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

s. The 213PT has 1 MB of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

and an additional 4 MB of RAM acting as a solid-state drive; the contents of the latter are kept preserved for up to a month when the unit is powered off through the use of an internal battery. The 213PT has an active-matrix electroluminescent display, with a grid of pixels providing EGA resolution. Informer followed this up in 1991 with the Informer 213AE, a cheaper asynchronous terminal that used an emulator to convert DEC

VT100 The VT100 is a video terminal, introduced in August 1978 by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was one of the first terminals to support ANSI escape codes for cursor control and other tasks, and added a number of extended codes for special ...

protocol to 3270 protocol. The 213AE lacked the PC-compatible element of the 213PT but kept the electroluminescent display.

References

External links

* {{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000816201719/informer911.com, title=Official website, date=August 16, 2000 1971 establishments in California 2007 establishments in California American companies established in 1971 American companies disestablished in 2007 Computer companies established in 1971 Computer companies established in 2007 Computer terminals Defunct computer companies based in California Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct computer systems companies