Data 20 Corporation was incorporated in California on May 26, 1982. The company was located south of Long Beach in Laguna Hills. Data 20 employed approximately twelve people. The company was founded by husband and wife team Edward and Jan Sempliner along with William J. Schlanger. The Sempliners contributed $ 30,000 as the initial capital of Data 20. Mr. Sempliner was a director, president, and a thirty percent owner of Data 20. In October, 1983, Sempliner had a nervous breakdown and resigned from Data 20.
Mr. Schlanger was 22 years old at the time and named director and vice-president of engineering. As vice-president of engineering of Data 20, Mr. Schlanger handled all of the engineering design and development for Data 20, and all of the production purchasing for Data 20. He hired and supervised the five engineers and technicians working for Data 20. He also hired his brother, Steven.
Steven Schlanger was hired as a salesman by his brother. In October, 1983, when Sempliner resigned, Steven was named a director and vice-president of sales and marketing of Data 20. As vice-president of marketing for Data 20, he was responsible for selling the products of Data 20. He handled customer relationships. He supervised two employees who fielded phone calls from Data 20′s customers. He controlled the prices Data 20 charged its customers.
In January, 1984, William Schlanger hired William White to be president of Data 20. Under White's leadership, Data 20 failed to fully pay its payroll taxes from the last quarter of 1983, all four quarters of 1984, and the first half of 1985. The company also failed to secure meaningful venture capital during this time.
In May, 1985, William Schlanger resigned from Data 20 when the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. On October 12, 1989, the United States of America recovered $70k from William White in a lawsuit over the whole payroll tax issue. The Schlanger brothers went on to patent an uninterrupted power supply system for Unison Technologies in October, 1988.
VIC-20 Compatible Peripherals and Software
To the best of my knowledge the following "Video Pak" information and product manual is not available anywhere else online today. There were at least two versions of the Data 20 hardware for VIC-20 that I can tell...
1982 Data 20 16K "Video Pak" w/ Power Supply seems to be a first generation of the 40/80 column card products. Power supply was 9V AC output (same as VIC), so a two prong VIC-20 power supply could be adapted by connecting leads to the bottom side of pins 1 and 3. A number of people have reported owning 64k Video Paks, so they were definitely not vaporware. Video Pak firmware resides in BLK 5, however adding another 3K + 8K in BLK 3 can give you max 31K bytes free for Basic!! How?
F1 = UPPER CASE F2 = LOWER CASE F3 = ERASE TO END OF LINE F4 = ERASE TO END OF SCREEN F6 = PRINT SCREEN [must OPEN127,4 first], or OPEN127,4:PRINT#127,CHR$(139):CLOSE127 F8 = TERMINAL ON|OFF [must open127,2,2,CHR$(8) first]Unplugging the Video Pak power adapter also disables the 16K expander, so you can leave it in and still use your Mega-Cart or other similar products. The Video Pak is also compatible with the Speakeasy Voice Synthesizer; Cardco CK/1 Numeric Keypad and JiffyDOS (function keys do not work, and disk directories must be loaded / listed). Software research is still ongoing, but here is an example of how to use the Programmer's Aid cartridge (function keys do work):
| Synertek 6545 Data Sheet Data20Programs.zip from Brent Santin "Plan Manager" - missing software alert!! Word Manager Instruction Manual from bytemaniacos.com Word Manager Feature Strip (draft) |  |  |  |
Word Manager Feature Key Definitions:
F1 SELEXT FUNCTION KEY SHIFT / NON-SHIFT --- ----------------- 1 SAVE / LOAD 2 CENTER / PRINT 3 CHANGE PRINTER / CHANGE STORAGE 4 BLOCK MOVE / BLOCK COPY 5 REPLACE / SEARCH 6 REPEAT OFF / REPEAT ON 7 UNDERLINE OFF / UNDERLINE ON 8 MERGE FILE NAME / SET MERGE 9 REMOVE DOCUMENT / CLEAR DOCUMENT 0 SET FORMAT + LEFT JUSTIFY / GOTO NEXT PAGE - READ DIRECTORY / GOTO PREVIOUS PAGE LBS FORMAT DISK / EXIT TO BASIC CLRHOME DELETE LINE / TOP OF PAGE INSTDEL INSERT TEXT / DELETE CHARACTER
Protecto 80 Video Cartridge Instruction Manual from Denial member, "Mayhem," plus image below:
