Documentation

NEW as of April 2022!  Bitsavers.org!  /pdf/entrex
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"We made it speak the operator's language."

We wonder, how similar is the above to the as-yet-to-be-seen promotional brochure in the collection of the Computer History Museum?  Maybe someday we shall see...

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https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1975-vintage-computer-entrex-280-1738697207

 Downloaded from:
https://classic.technology/entrex-system-280/

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 Title:    Data Entry System
Publisher:    Entrex, 1974
We only know this exists because it's vague listing on Books.Google.com here

 Does anyone have any idea how we could ever find a copy?

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Study of Data Entry Requirements at Marshall Space Flight Computation Center
Supported by NAS8-30879
Prepared by Gordon R. Sherman, Project Director
University of Tennessee Computing Center
Knoxville, Tennessee - May 30, 1975
Entrex is named on Page 8 (PDF Page 14)
"One of these companies, Knoxville Computing Center, replaced their Univac keypunches with an eighteen station Entrex key-to-disk system. At the time of our visit, three of the stations were remote, being located in various businesses in East Tennessee. The data entry supervisor informed us that there had been a 20% increase in productivity which resulted in reducing the operator staff by three."
And there's more.  The word "Entrex" appears 15 times throughout this entire document.

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A Programmer's Tale (1966-2001)
Ralph Atenasio
Partially displayed on Books.Google.com here
(with pages missing throughout up to page 121, and then completely cut off after 122.) 

In Chapter 1 of his book, "Returning to the Real World", I see this text in only the 1st & 2nd sentence of the first paragraph:

 "February 1965...I had just finished four years in the Air force, the last two and a half spent in Berlin Germany."

 Since the purpose of the website, as found on its home page at http://www.bia6912.org/index.htm , linked by the page where I find this lower picture, says:

 "The Berlin Island Association is comprised of former members of the United States Air Force Intelligence unit and related operations in Berlin, Germany."

 By context, it could very well be that this is indeed the same Ralph Atenasio.

 Courtesy of Ralph Atenasio (62-65)

 January 5, 2019 Update:  We found Ralph, and had a very nice discussion with him.  He was very wonderful and gracious to talk to. He provided the Entrex Programmers Reference Manual and Editor Instruction Set (posted at the top of this page), and even a few pictures, that we will post provided we are granted permission from Ralph.  

 And we might provide a PDF download of his full book here in its entirety, if he allows us to do that also, that is...
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Find this Data/Terminal User's Guide - Entrex 600 Series:
https://vt100.net/manx/details/43,11084
From Archive.org/web if original URL doesn't work...
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Author: González G., Florentino R.
Date: 1982
From Archive.org/web if original URL doesn't work...

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 UNIFORM INDUSTRY AUTOMATIONS AND MEASUREMENT APPARATUS "MERA" ELECTRONIC CALCULATION TECHNIQUE (translated into English)

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 VOLUME V - INFORMATIQUE NON AMERICAINE (in French)

VOLUME V - NON-AMERICAN COMPUTING
Part I by the General Engineer of the Armament BOUCHER Henri TABLE
(Translated to English)

Translated from French to English (on page 29):

 In 1974, Nixdorf approached America in two ways:
on the one hand, it buys the license of the American product Entrex 480, which it will produce in
Paderborn and will market in Europe in its 8850 products; on the other hand, it makes
to realize in the USA, by the company Nitron, a microprocessor NCF1 which it will use in
its American models 8830 and 8862. With the 900 and microprocessors that
begin to appear, Nixdorf has four solutions and will activate them every
four, which may explain some of the later difficulties.
Operation 620 costs Nixdorf $ 1.8 million in license plus royalties on
every machine that uses CPU, not to mention production investments.
The Entrex will first be announced under its American label, in three versions 480,
380 for 22 positions, and 280 for 12 positions, while the production is being prepared.
Then the 620 is announced in 1978 as a product, in two versions 25 and 45. The
25 is a basic standalone, with a screen of 1920 characters, a cartridge of
2.5 MB and a floppy disk; the 45 adds up to 4 dispacks of 66 MB. But these
OEM announcements only last for a moment, and the 620 fades behind the
8850 in 1980
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