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Sycor Computers, anyone heard of it?

N

Nighthawk500

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Oct 9, 2015
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So I have no idea where to post this, and there is hardly any information about this company on the web. All I found was this: http://vt100.net/sycor/ My grandfather worked for Sycor and still has one of their computers. I wish to sell this and have no idea where to start or how to contact a collector. I found it mentioned in some old news articles in the late 70s but that's it. I would really appreciate ANY guidance. He is giving it to me as inheritance and told me to sell it to help pay for college. For all I know it could be worth $10 to $100000. Again, any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Take some pictures of what you have. If you have a complete computer, someone will bid for it.
Remember that shipping a full size system will be very expensive; often the shipping company will make out the best on old computer sales.

Google Books has some issues of ComputerWorld scanned that give a little information about Sycor but it is very slight from what I see. An ad showing nothing more than a hand holding an 8" floppy near a drive isn't helpful in evaluating the merits of a 40 year old computer.
 
Sorry for late response, where would I put it up for bidding? Ebay? I also have the old manual for the system. Also, it is indeed complete.
 
Ebay is a good choice for it. This site has an auction feature with a smaller audience.

If you can, I hope you could post pictures of the system. I am curious about it. Others with more EBay selling experience might be able to suggest how to better market what you have.
 
Here are some pictures: Scan0030-page-001.jpg

And a description that my Grandfather gave me to give to anyone else:

I am a retired employee of nortel which acquired a company named Sycor located in Ann Arbor, MI about 1982. I began my career at sycor in 1969 being a system designer specializing in communications. It might interest you that sycor had the first patented computer terminal named Sycor 340. this model was first sold about 1970. Prior to this model Sycor produced security terminals for the brokerage industry in new york city. We had 2 models, 1 sitting in brokerage offices taking orders and i on the floor of the new york stock exchange buying stocks. These 2 models drastically decreased time needed to buy and sell stocks. These terminals transmuted at 1200 baud replacing teletypes that transmitted at 85 baud. These were the first terminals patented. I am the owner of a 340 intelligent terminal, programmer manual and about 25 cassettes which contain terminal programs. This terminal was originally owned by Kansas Highway Department. This terminal was built in 1974. The principal owner and developer of sycor was Sam Erwin. He was the first software manager at Hewlett-Packard when that company was formed.

Thank you for everyone helping me!
 
It looks like it is just a terminal not a full computer. Terminals typically only interest users that have the rest of the components of a computer. That means it will take longer to sell. Maybe you could try a starting price of $100 plus shipping? Might get less, might get more, how patient are you. Hard to say.

The typical seller suggested prices on Ebay for similar terminals are much higher but those have sat for years with multiple relistings.

You have good provenance and I hope it finds a matching collector or a spot in an interested museum.
 
Thank you sir! Also, what other components do you speak of? My dad used to play simple games his dad's friends made on it. I guess I don't have a very good understanding of older computer systems, but there are a lot of cassettes my dad still has. And thank you again!
 
Well, yes, it's a terminal. You have the 340 with dual cassette drives; there was a 350 without them, with optional 8" floppy drives and even optional half-inch tape, hard drive, line printer and card reader add-ons. Memory was pretty limited, even for the time, with 8K of ROM and 8K of RAM.

The programming language (TAL) appears to be oriented toward data entry applications. Here's a marketing brochure that shows some of the options

So, I'd put it a notch above the ordinary terminal of the time. What's it worth? I'm not a collector, so I don't know.
 
Nighthawk500 said:
Thank you sir! Also, what other components do you speak of? My dad used to play simple games his dad's friends made on it. I guess I don't have a very good understanding of older computer systems, but there are a lot of cassettes my dad still has. And thank you again!
Click to expand...

I was thinking of a primary CPU and storage. In modern terms, a terminal is equivalent to a keyboard plus monitor. An intelligent terminal is a specialized limited computer which is designed to be connected to a bigger computer. The primary market for a terminal is someone who owns a mini-computer or mainframe but does not have a working terminal. There will be fewer potential buyers for Sycor terminals than for big name personal computers.

If the terminal runs, take pictures of it running. If you can get the tapes working as well, I suggest you take pictures of the terminal running some of those tapes. Working hardware sells for more; working hardware running software not available to other hardware probably would garner even higher prices. Certainly would stand out from all the other terminals being offered on an "AS-IS" basis.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Well, yes, it's a terminal. You have the 340 with dual cassette drives; there was a 350 without them, with optional 8" floppy drives and even optional half-inch tape, hard drive, line printer and card reader add-ons. Memory was pretty limited, even for the time, with 8K of ROM and 8K of RAM.

The programming language (TAL) appears to be oriented toward data entry applications. Here's a marketing brochure that shows some of the options

So, I'd put it a notch above the ordinary terminal of the time. What's it worth? I'm not a collector, so I don't know.
Click to expand...

Response: I was a TAL Assembly programmer in the mid 1970's, from 1974-1976 at Providence Washington Insurance. in
addition to other Cobol programming and BAL duties for their IBM 360 mainframe.
I'm not sure, but I think the internal processor might have been an 8080 but you could not tell from the assembly language
and the machine code printed out as alphabetic and a bunch of other ascii symbols. It was a terminal with green phosphor letters
display, a keyboard and two cassette drives.
 
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