Daniel Meyer (February 6, 1932 – May 16, 1998) was the founder and president

Southwest Technical Products Corporation Southwest Technical Products Corporation, or SWTPC, was an American producer of electronic kits, and later complete computer systems. It was incorporated in 1967 in San Antonio, Texas, succeeding the Daniel E. Meyer Company. In 1990, SWTPC becam ...

. He was born in

New Braunfels, Texas New Braunfels ( ) is a city in Comal and Guadalupe counties in the U.S. state of Texas known for its German Texan heritage. It is the seat of Comal County. The city covers and had a population of 90,403 as of the 2020 Census. A suburb just nor ...

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 ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

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 ''Radio-Electronics'' was an American electronics magazine that was published under various titles from 1929 to 2003. Hugo Gernsback, sometimes called the father of science fiction, started it as ''Radio-Craft'' in July 1929. The title was changed ...

'' (October, November 1962). The author is Daniel Meyer, Research Engineer at Southwest Research Institute. Circuit boards could be ordered from Dan's home at 430 Redclift Drive in San Antonio, Texas. The article was continued in the November 1962 issue. The March 1963 issue of ''

Popular Electronics ''Popular Electronics'' was an American magazine published by John August Media, LLC, and hosted at TechnicaCuriosa.com. The magazine was started by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company in October 1954 for electronics hobbyists and experimenters. It soo ...

'' 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. Circuit boards could ordered from Dan's home at 430 Redclift Drive in San Antonio Texas. 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 Donald E. Lancaster is an American author, inventor, and microcomputer pioneer. Background Lancaster is a writer and engineer, who authored multiple articles for computer and electronics magazines of the 1970s, including ''Popular Electronics' ...

's "IC-67 Metal Locator". In early 1967 Meyer moved his growing business from his home to a new building on a site in San Antonio. The DEMCO address is now 219 W. Rhapsody, San Antonio, Texas. The Daniel E. Meyer Company (DEMCO) became Southwest Technical Products Corporation (

SWTPC Southwest Technical Products Corporation, or SWTPC, was an American producer of electronic kits, and later complete computer systems. It was incorporated in 1967 in San Antonio, Texas, succeeding the Daniel E. Meyer Company. In 1990, SWTPC bec ...

) that fall. The first use of Southwest Technical Products Corporation. 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 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. Interview with Daniel Meyer at the "Personal Computing 77" conference at Atlantic City NJ in August 1977 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 The Motorola 6809 ("''sixty-eight-oh-nine''") is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit microprocessor with some 16-bit computing, 16-bit features. It was designed by Motorola's Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced in 1978. Although source compatible wi ...

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.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer, Daniel 1932 births 1998 deaths Businesspeople from Texas American technology writers Texas State University alumni People from San Marcos, Texas People from New Braunfels, Texas People from San Antonio 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American businesspeople