Motorola Expo: A trilogy

[Avery Johannssenn]

My other thread self-locked, so I had to make a new one.

I've been digging around all corners of the internet trying to make sense of my bizarre DTMF display Expo. During those travels, I finally had a breakthrough last night whilst browsing page 8 of the 1986 Motorola Shareholder Annual Report. Motorola introduced the "Expo® Touch Code series of two-way portable radios, which provide two-way communications plus paging and telephone interconnect..." could the display Expo be what they're describing?! Was it ever produced, or was it stillborn?

Also picked up a third radio, which is a DTMF Expo. Finally have the golden era pre-Visar trifecta. Now to replace the guts with the secure version.

Some bonus content: PDFs copies of the annual reports which document the golden era of Mother /\/\ I learned quite a bit about radios I'd never heard of, as well as dates of manufacture for different product lines. Apparently there's a VHF marine version of the MX300 (not the MX300R)

1971	1972	1973	1974	1976 ('75 unavailable)	1977	1978	1979
1981 ('80 unavailable)	1982	1983	1984	1986 ('85 unavailable)	1987	1988	1989
1991 ('90 unavailable)	1992	1993	1994	1996 ('95 unavailable)	1997	1998	1999 (the rest suck)

Make sure to click for full size images:

 

[Astro Spectra]

Oh the memories, the semiconductors, the technology, the radios, the hair styles...

 

[WQNV648]

Good find! The report mentions the KDT terminals; funny enough, the first major customer of that system was AAA for their 1st mobile tow truck dispatching service on a national level....it didn't last long lol.

 

[Geekdad]

Great find! What a time machine... I finally found the PCX!

 

[petnrdx]

Those are really cool, rare radios.
And thanks for the articles.
Interesting reading.

 

[jjbond]

Awesome.... Back when I was in Vancouver in 88/89 our EDPS (Embassy Diplomatic Protection Service, Special O and Special I had a bunch of these when we were on a detail not needing encryption (Saber). We had some in CLEU as well (Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit.)

I seem to recall them being a lot smaller but probably just my imagination.
Jen

 

[MTS2000DES]

Great memories. Also forgot Motorola's use of the term "Touch Code" because they didn't want to pay Western Electric for their "Touch Tone" patents.

 

[jjbond]

My favorites always been “”””Private””” Line, be it PL or DPL and the look we’ve all seen at least once in our careers when we say “No, Jack, actually that auto patch call last night home with the Misses telling her you’re be late wasn’t “””private”””, why ... I AM being serious, I don’t care what your M Salesman said to get the contract signed.

 

[Notarola]

Awesome.... Back when I was in Vancouver in 88/89 our EDPS (Embassy Diplomatic Protection Service, Special O and Special I had a bunch of these when we were on a detail not needing encryption (Saber). We had some in CLEU as well (Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit.)

I seem to recall them being a lot smaller but probably just my imagination.
Jen

I remember the super short expo batteries. We had a few DVP units with them. They lasted a shift but we did not use the units a lot so TX time was minimal. I think they were the smallest radios I ever used.

 

[jjbond]

Great memories. Also forgot Motorola's use of the term "Touch Code" because they didn't want to pay Western Electric for their "Touch Tone" patents.

I don't think M can use the term "Touch Code" these days, it's a snowflake trigger and violates implied personal space boundaries... LOL

 

[d119]

Reading these reports and seeing the imagery is sickening to a degree, after seeing what has become of Motorola. Better times, I suppose.

 

[jjbond]

Reading these reports and seeing the imagery is sickening to a degree, after seeing what has become of Motorola. Better times, I suppose.

Sadly that applies to most things in life right now.... OUR time was the BEST time.

There WAS a sweet spot, a time post "Syntor etc suitcase programmers" and pre "US Govt using taxpayers funds to mandate a 4 person SO in the middle of BF Egypt replace all their perfectly good radios "in the interest of interoperability"".... I'm glad my time in this feces hole is almost over, I don't want to be here for the next generation and what it's going to be.... all M will be in a few years is a manufacturer for items used in The Lives of Others, the Sequel..(google it, great movie, drop the "The Sequel" part..... oh well... when I die, I want to go out peacefully, like my grandfather did... not screaming in terror like his passengers.

 

[d119]

I exited the MSS game and went to work in public transit. Sorry, not sorry.

 

[Avery Johannssenn]

Speaking of oddballs and relics from those annual reports, this came into my possession this week. It's missing the actual barcode scanner wand, but it's in fantastic shape. I don't have an MX-300 battery charger, but I'll try and get one so I can power it up. It came out in 1978 if this thing uses MODAT or some kind of FSK for the data transmission. It's crystaled for red dot VHF channels, so that'll be guilt-free testing.

If anyone's played with these or has any info, I'd love to hear it.

These are big pix, so click on em and enjoy!

 

[Geekdad]

RDX1000's! Yowza! That one is pristine condition.

I got a chance to play with the 3270 versions back when I was in the MIS Dept at Motorola back around 1980. They had a special base station that connected to the Mainframe system for data. It had a 13 segment alphanumeric LED display that scrolled right to left.

That one looks like a ASCII/VT100 style keyboard. There were different types like the 3270 that I played with.

 

[Avery Johannssenn]

RDX1000's! Yowza! That one is pristine condition.

I got a chance to play with the 3270 versions back when I was in the MIS Dept at Motorola back around 1980. They had a special base station that connected to the Mainframe system for data. It had a 13 segment alphanumeric LED display that scrolled right to left.

That one looks like a ASCII/VT100 style keyboard. There were different types like the 3270 that I played with.

Awesome!

Was this just simple inventory tracking then? Item number and quantity? Any idea what data format it used?

 

[Geekdad]

The RDX could do just about anything a dumb terminal could do. So think of it as a wireless VT100. Barcode readers generally sent data as if it came from the keyboard. The unit I played with was for IBM 3270 terminal emulation. I had to do the controller/terminal definition for the mainframe. As far as the mainframe was concerned it was talking to a standard 3277/3278 display. I never got a chance to see the base station/controller though.

 

[Bill_G]

Awesome!

Was this just simple inventory tracking then? Item number and quantity? Any idea what data format it used?

If it was 1980, 300 baud FSK was king. Mighta been cutting edge 1200 baud.

 

[Geekdad]

Not sure what was in the radio. I do know it wasn't very fast.