Obscure EDS (Electronic Data Systems) Terminals/Microcomputers (Not Sure Which), Anyone ever seen these before?
Posted by SanAndreasElevator@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 4 comments
Parking_Jelly_6483@reddit
My wife worked for EDS when it was Ross Perot’s company. She was mostly writing in COBOL in those days. She was familiar with the terminals since those are what the applications and so the users had to use. When I met her, she had left EDS and was working for a healthcare information systems company (then writing in MUMPS).
ONLYallcaps@reddit
Oh boy Usage Electric on YouTube would love to know about these.
SanAndreasElevator@reddit (OP)
Yeah I know! But that EDS clone he has was originally a Centurion product.
SanAndreasElevator@reddit (OP)
Let me provide some context about these systems I found:
While digging through some old archival footage of a local hospital that dated from 1987-1999 that was filmed by a now defunct TV station, I noticed these rather interesting EDS systems that were used on the hospital's nursing units that basically were used for patient information systems related tasks. They seemed to be used from about 1987 at the earliest to around 1999. From what I understand, EDS seemed to be solely a software and IT services company and didn't have much if not anything to do with computer hardware. Once upon a time EDS was actually owned by General Motors from 1984-1996 and was eventually swallowed up by HP in 2008.
Other than the footage I've seen and one picture of the unit I found in the General Motors 1984 annual report, I have searched high and low for information and images regarding these units and have been unsuccessful, but there are a couple of interesting things about them that I'd like to point out in the images I posted (first image is from the GM 1984 annual report, the second image I found just recently is from an old website that talked about security but it doesn't go directly into detail about the EDS terminal itself, and the rest are from the hospital footage, I apologize if some of them aren't the best quality but I tried my best to get full screenshots of these units). In the first image from the annual report you'll notice on the left side of the screen there are 20 function keys (A-T) for selecting menu items which, in my opinion, seems quite intuitive especially for the time when you mostly relied on arrow keys and typing commands for selecting menu functions. I'm currently not aware of any other terminal or microcomputer from the time that has this type of feature. The second feature that I'd like to point out is the card reader on the right side of the unit. The second image shows the card reader in use. From what I can tell by watching some of the footage it basically worked in a similar fashion to the card readers on the Sun Ray thin clients (where once the card is yanked out it locks the unit/logs the user off) but the cards are magnetic stipe and not smart cards.
The only possible information that I've found about these systems is a document I found on the web archive about "INPUT's Vendor Analysis Program" and it states that EDS had a product known as "Micro.Net" which seems to be hospital information system software developed by EDS. The document states, "Micro.Net can be used on a facilities management basis or installed as a turnkey system. The turnkey system operates on Data General or Sperry Univac minicomputers, or the EDS Intelligent Microcomputer." so maybe this "EDS Intelligent Microcomputer" might be what I'm looking for, but there is no information online for that system either.
It's also worth noting that at the time this hospital had these EDS units they had a Data General Eclipse minicomputer with D210 terminals in the offices and not the nursing units so the EDS units may have been connected to the Data General Eclipse system.
Maybe these terminals/microcomputers were a rebadge of something different and not developed by EDS.
Please let me know if you have any information about these units.