Daniel Meyer (engineer), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Daniel Meyer (engineer)

American engineer

Date of Birth: 06-Feb-1932

Place of Birth: New Braunfels, Texas, United States

Date of Death: 16-May-1998

Profession: writer, businessperson

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Aquarius


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About Daniel Meyer (engineer)

  • Daniel Meyer (February 6, 1932 – May 16, 1998) was the founder and president Southwest Technical Products Corporation.
  • He was born in New Braunfels, Texas and raised in San Marcos, Texas where he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics in 1957 from Southwest Texas State.
  • After college he married Helen Wentz, moved to San Antonio and became a research engineer in the electrical engineering department of Southwest Research Institute. He soon started writing hobbyist articles.
  • The first was in Electronics World (May 1960) and later he had a two part cover feature for Radio-Electronics (October, November 1962).
  • The March 1963 issue of Popular Electronics featured his ultrasonic listening device on the cover.
  • The projects would often require a printed circuit board or specialized components that were not available at the local electronics parts store.
  • Readers could purchase them directly from Dan Meyer.Dan Meyer saw the business opportunity in providing circuit boards and parts for the Popular Electronics projects.
  • In January 1964 he left Southwest Research Institute to start an electronics kit company.
  • He continued to write articles and ran the mail order kit business from his home garage in San Antonio, Texas.
  • By 1965 he was providing the kits for other authors such as Lou Garner.
  • In 1967 he sold a kit for Don Lancaster's "IC-67 Metal Locator".
  • In early 1967 Meyer moved his growing business from his home to a new building on a 3-acre (12,000 m2) site in San Antonio.
  • The Daniel E.
  • Meyer Company (DEMCO) became Southwest Technical Products Corporation (SWTPC) that fall.The concept of selling a kit based on a magazine article had been around since the early days of radio.
  • Daniel Meyer perfected the process.
  • In 1967, Popular Electronics had six articles by Dan Meyer and four by Don Lancaster.
  • Seven of that year's cover stories featured kits sold by SWTPC.
  • In the years 1966 to 1971, SWTPC's authors wrote 64 articles and had 25 cover stories in Popular Electronics.
  • (Don Lancaster alone had 23 articles and 10 were cover stories.) The San Antonio Express-News did a feature story on Southwest Technical Products in November 1972.
  • "Meyer built his mail-order business from scratch to more than $1 million in sales in six years." The company was shipping 100 kits a day from 18,000 square feet (1,700 m2) of buildings.In the first ten years, SWTPC's most popular products were audio kits followed by test equipment.
  • There was also typical 1970s products like color organs that would synchronize colored lights with music as well as strobe lights.
  • Dan Meyer developed a series of very low intermodulation (IM) distortion audio power amplifiers known as Tigers, many still in use today.
  • Don Lancaster developed a series of decimal readout counters and voltmeters that used the latest technology. In mid 1975 Dan Meyer asked one of his engineers, Gary Kay, to design a computer based on the Motorola 6800 design kit.
  • The first deliveries were in November 1975.
  • In June 1976 SWTPC introduced the AC-30 Cassette Interface for data storage and the PR-40 printer.
  • One could now purchase a complete computer system for about $1500.Many of the early hobbyist computer companies were founded by engineers who did not know how to run a business.
  • They would fold in a year or so.
  • SWTPC had been successful in the kit business for over a decade so they could deliver working products. Floppy Disk systems, full feature terminals, and many peripherals were added in 1977.
  • The bus structure was called the SS-50 and soon many other vendors were making add-in cards and complete systems.
  • In 1979 SWTPC introduced a new line based on the Motorola 6809 processor.
  • These systems were produced until the mid-1980s.
  • By then, the IBM PC was dominating the personal computer world and SWTPC shifted to point of sale (POS) systems.

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