Alfaskop

Alfaskop was a brand, developed in Sweden by Standard Radio & Telefon AB (SRT) and applied to data terminals and later IBM-compatible PCs. The term was also used to name Alfaskop AB, a listed Swedish IT services company., that filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

SRT, owned by the ITT Corporation during the 1960s, specialised in Air Traffic Control systems and military radar systems. In 1971, SRT provided the core technology for Stansaab AS, a joint venture with Saab and the state-owned Swedish Development Company. The company’s primary focus was systems for real-time data applied to commercial and aviation applications. To this was added the data terminal operations of Facit in 1972. The Alfaskop terminals quickly gained a foothold in the market for airline reservations with 1,000 in use at Scandinavian Airlines alone.

In 1978, Stansaab was merged with the Data Saab division of Saab to form Datasaab. In 1981, Ericsson, believing that growth in telecoms would be lower than that in IT, purchased Datasaab and integrated it with two of its own divisions to form Ericsson Information Systems (EIS). Accurately predicting convergence between telephony and data technologies, EIS instructed the Alfaskop group to begin working on a design for Ericsson's first PC – the EPC, which was released 16 months later in 1984.

Following market difficulties in the United States, particularly with a disappointing launch of its PC, Ericsson decided to abandon its "paperless office" strategy. In 1988, the division was sold to Nokia and later to ICL in 1990. The final act was its sale by ICL to Wyse Technology who eventually wound down manufacturing.

Due to its work for the aviation industry, one of SRT’s core competencies was the display of radar images. It was this expertise that led to the development of the Alfaskop terminal, which was inspired by the launch of IBM's range of display terminals. These terminals made interaction with computers much easier than with earlier punched card or paper tape interfaces. The alphanumeric, 80 character, 24 line terminal quickly became a standard. The Alfaskop terminals were designed to be pin compatible with the IBM equipment. The Alfaskop 3100, the first model, was designed to compete with the IBM 2260, while the later 3500 was developed in response to the IBM 3270. There followed a refreshed 3500 called System 37 followed by a System 41 – a new design.

...
Wikipedia