In the 80s I was a regional field service engineer in the UK supporting ETS1010, ETS2010, TES401 and TES621/601 systems along with the full range of ET typewriters and M series computer systems. I remember being on the first training course in the UK for the ETS1010. At the time this was a ground breaking system that put other similar products in the shade. The only technical limiting factor was the durability of the floppy disk drives but this was nothing that an oscilloscope, test floppy disk, screwdrivers and a bit of skill couldn’t sort out. The 2010 was a huge improvement on an already great product. Far more reliable. The ETS2040 would have been a brilliant platform for multiuser word processing but came out at a time when I guess PCs and early word processing packages were taking hold of the market. These were great times. I suppose towards the end of computers being fixable with tools and a soldering iron and moving into the disposable products that we now have.

I worked at Syntrex 1985-86 on the production floor and in customer service. Most of the units we built had zodiac names. The terminals were called Aquarius and I think the hard drive cabinets were Geminis. The hard drives were huge, like a suit case, and about 150 meg each. The smaller ones were just coming out in 1986 and were about the same physical size of the ones made now at 10-30 meg.

I actually worked for the company that made these for Olivetti. They were made in Eatintown nJ by Syntrex Inc. The os was a proprietory one called SOS and was somewhat like a unix system. The features were ahead if the times.