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27 Jan 2024
; "Cybertech Company, Texas, 1980")
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Cybertech was a small tech venture created by Dave Morris and Roger Arrick in 1980. Dave was software and I (Roger) was hardware, and we tried both. We were young and it was our first attempt at making a living outside our normal jobs. Here are some of the remnants for preservation sake.
To my knowledge, this digital logic probe was Cybertech's first and only product. It was my first commercial product design - I was 19. The product was a digital electronic probe with LEDs to indicate the state of a digital signal, including my attempt at tri-state, and whether the signal was pulsing or not. Basically test equipment for computers and other digital circuitry.
We sold a few units and there was an initial order of a hundred units pending to a company in Dallas that could have helped us get started but the customer didn't follow through. This was a fast-paced exciting time for the tech industry and the beginning of the mainstream adoption of small computers, before the IBM PC. It was a tough time and a good time.
I have this one production sample and a hand-made prototype left. It's fun to look back at stuff I drew 40+ years ago. I did the circuit artwork by hand, this was WAY before CAD.
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe tester")
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe PCB")
; "First logic probe 1977")
Here's a small ad we had in Byte Magazine November 1980
; "Cybertech DLP1300 logic probe Ad Byte magazine Nov 1980")
Towards the end of our venture I tried to build T-Switches to share multiple peripherals on a single computer port. This was technically easy but the parts cost was astronomical back then for a quality switch and it took lots of soldering individual wires. There was a serial RS-232 port version and a 36-pin Centronics parallel port version. I built the prototype by hand in a Radio-Shack grey/black project shadow box, nibbling out the sheet-metal manually, and labeling with rub-off letters. Later I went on to solve some of the cost and labor problems with Arrick Computer Products.
; "Cybertech T-Switches")
; "Cybertech T-Switches")
Our memories are vague on this but Dave wrote some software for AMWAY distributors and we went to the AMWAY convention in Fort Worth (around 1980) to hand out brochures for it. Dave was also experimenting with natural language processing software.
We were both working normal jobs in the tech industry to keep our lives afloat while trying to get Cybertech to work but we ended up going in different directions - Dave continued in software and I went into computer products then robotics then synthesizers. Dave developed a popular chat program and also some ham radio-related web publishing.