Documation was an

American Stock Exchange NYSE American, formerly known as the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and more recently as NYSE MKT, is an American stock exchange situated in New York City. AMEX was previously a mutual organization, owned by its members. Until 1953, it was known ...

-listed computer hardware manufacturer founded in 1969 in

Melbourne, Florida Melbourne is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is located southeast of Orlando. As of th2020 Decennial Census there was a population of 84,678. The municipality is the second-largest in the county by both size and population. ...

that went public in 1976. They made (

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...

)

card reader A card reader is a data input device that reads data from a card-shaped storage medium. The first were punched card readers, which read the paper or cardboard punched cards that were used during the first several decades of the computer industry ...

s used in some American elections 3 decades later. They also produced

Impact Impact may refer to: * Impact (mechanics), a high force or shock (mechanics) over a short time period * Impact, Texas, a town in Taylor County, Texas, US Science and technology * Impact crater, a meteor crater caused by an impact event * Impact ...

Line printer A line printer prints one entire line of text before advancing to another line. Most early line printers were impact printers. Line printers are mostly associated with unit record equipment and the early days of digital computing, but the ...

s. In late 1980,

Storage Technology Corporation Storage Technology Corporation (StorageTek or STK, earlier STC) was a data storage technology company headquartered in Louisville, Colorado. New products include data retention systems, which it calls "information lifecycle management" (ILM). It ...

(STC) acquired Documation, which was subsequently spun off, and those companies which subdivided from it, most of which use Documation-like names, no longer manufacture computer peripherals. Documation was described as "a financially troubled printer manufacturer." Documation card reader

IMPACT Line printers

Documation's ''IMPACT 3000'', named for its 3,000 lines per minute rating, was followed a year later by the 3,800 LPM ''IMPACT 3800''. A 5,000 lines per minute printer was introduced in 1986, by which time the company was operating under the name StorageTek Printer Corp. Like earlier impact printer models, it is manufactured in Florida. At the time of the Series 5000's introduction, the company said that "impact printers dominate 85 percent of the market." The company's laser printers are rebadged from

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Documation's Burroughs-rebadged printers

Four Documation printers, rebadged by Burroughs Corporation, Burroughs as DOC 2000B, DOC 1800B, DOC 1500B and DOC 1250B were introduced in 1978. Per their names, they were rated at "2,000-, 1,800-, 1,500- and 1,250" lines per minute, when using 48 character ASCII.

Card readers

Among the card readers made by Documation for minicomputers in the 1970s were: * M-200 card reader, 300 cards/minute also sold by Digital Equipment Corporation, DEC as the CR-11 card reader for the PDP-11 * M-600 card reader, 600 cards/minute, also sold by HP as 2892A and 2893A * M-1000-L card reader 1,000 cards/minute Their card readers have been used in elections,(2006 elections, Arizona) including the 2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida, 2000 Chad (paper), "Chads" election in Florida.

End-user market

In late 1977 Documation successfully entered the end-user market. They initially focused on selling card readers to end-users; their model 6501 is IBM-compatible. They subsequently added line printers to the equipment they sold to end-users.

Storage Technology Corporation and thereafter

By 1992, the name Documation was no longer affiliated with Storage Technology Corporation in the US, but the latter still owned two Documation-named subsidiaries, one in France and the other in UK.

Ubeo, DOCUmation, Documation Inc

The New York Times (adding "Inc") continued earnings and other coverage in the 1980s and early 1990s. Ubeo Business Services and DOCUmation are regional companies somewhat related to the original Documation that had been acquired by StorageTek. ''Documation Inc'' is covered by Bloomberg Markets, Bloomberg; DOCUmation is a name that came into being in 1997, post-Storage Tek. At that point, neither company manufactured card readers or printers. Their niche is service and distribution of printers and duplicators/copying machines. Another "Documation" is named ''Documation, LLC'' (founded 1994) and is based in Wisconsin. Their focus is described by Bloomberg as "print and digital media solutions ... direct mail marketing ... and graphic design." Ubeo was a breakaway from DOCUmation, which was formed in the late 1990s by a merger of two San Antonio, Texas companies. Before their May 2017 split they were known as DOCUmation of San Antonio Ubeo was acquired by Sentinel Capital Partners in 2018. DOCUmation acquired DocumentWorx November 2018 and renamed it DocumentWORKS.

References

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External links

* :fr:Documation, French Wiki about a different ''Documation'' (a trade show organized by ''InfoPromotions'')
French trade show "Documation"'s Official website (same name but unrelated to this article's subject)
Defunct computer companies of the United States Card reader (punched cards)