Thorn EMI Datatech
Thorn EMI Datatech
Following the acquisition/merger of the EMI group by Thorn, the company was re-branded Thorn EMI Datatech. Although still successful during this period, the Thorn-EMI marriage was an unhappy one, the low-tech mass-market business of Thorn sitting uncomfortably with the more creative, high-quality EMI electronics businesses.
Satellite Recording
The advent of digital electronics was a challenge for data recording. The award of a contract by NASA in 1980 , codenamed Jupiter, to develop and manufacture digital recording equipment for ground stations to receive satellite earth observation data led eventually to the development of the SE9500 formatter, a set of sophisticated electronics that de-multiplexed the high data rate (100+Mbps!) to allow multiple simultaneous tracks to be recorded, then re-multiplexed on replay to reproduce the original data stream. The success of these products led to selection by ESA for the ERS-1 groundstation programme and many other digital recording applications in military, aerospace and instrumentation industries. A key feature of the system was to downshift the transmitted data rates to rates suitable for computer and image processing equipment of the time. The recordings could be replayed multiple times to allow different image extraction techniques to be used, and eventually archived to allow multi-year comparisons, especially valuable for Earth Observation in both Civil and Military applications.
This Space magazine reprint from 1988 give a good background into the satellite recording activities.
A ThornEMI Datatech paper, presented to the European Telemetry Conference in 1987. “High Density Digital Recorders in Ground Stations” gives some technical details of the 3PM system, and some typical satellite download capabilities.
People
Product Info and Brochures
A glossy Capability brochure from 1986
Applications Brochures 1986
Data Recording March 1986
Inseight Bulletins were quasi-technical applications info, designed as marketing material for the range of products made by SE Labs/Thorn EMI Datatech. Although listed under SE Labs and Thorn EMI Datatech separately, they are part of a sequence and were probably just reprinted when the name changed.
SE3000 Portable Recorder
Following the success of the SE7000 Portable recorder, and the ageing of the original SE8/4 1/2 inch/ 1/4 inch recorder, a new small portable recorder capable of 14 channel recording on 1/2 inch tape and 8 channels on 1/4 inch tape was introduced, the SE3000.
Notable for its use of expanded pu foam for a lightweight case and the first use of low energy CMOS circuitry, the recorder was aimed at customers needing multiple channel field instrumentation in a truly portable package. These units were very successful but faced fierce competition from the equally capable Racal Stor4/7 recorder.
Thorn EMI Datatech in Feltham
also continued to innovate. The Liberator has some claim to be the world’s first laptop word processor along with Modems, Chart recorders, Oscilloscopes and Instrumentation amplifiers, but was run as an entirely separate business unit from the Wells operation.
The division also built Sinclair Spectrum and QL computers under contract.