8080 development started late 1972 and it was released in 1974.
Huh. If the first silent700s shipped in 1972, well before the 8080 was available, then I think that implies that as a product line, this "terminal" went through quite a bit of product redesign over its lifetime. 1972 till "mid 1980s" is actually a pretty impressive life for a computer product during that timeframe (pre-8080 to post IBM-PC!)
I used on of these Silent 700's as a 12 year old in around 1978. My father would borrow it from work for me to play around with.
Hey, me too! Though more like 1976 and 16 years old. I also played a lot of Star Trek. Used to be something like $4/hour for the phone call (which dad complained about. $4 was a lot in 1976. Never complained about the paper use, though. Oil Companies! It didn't come home THAT often, though.)
The advantage being that you could spit out debug information that wouldn't need to be logged in memory and would persist (because it's on paper) in the event of a crash.
It was "standard practice" to have a printing terminal connected to the "console" of your mainframe, well into the 1980s (until mainframes themselves started to die out, essentially.)
No need to mock the device, for some applications a physical print was preferred.
In those days, print was pretty much all that was available. What would you count as the first portable "screen-based" thing? The Osborne 1 (in 1981) - no modem, a 52 column display, and $1795? Maybe the TRS80 Model 100 (1983) - 8x40 display WITH a modem - $1100? Maybe the Toshiba T1100 in 1985 (Full 80x25 display!)
Dave got amazed that the terminal didn't even have a screen, but still in 1972, computers were expected to print out their results. Video terminals became an affordable alternative a few years later.
Quite a few years later.
In 1972 even the most basic video displays made the silent 700 look cheap.
I think we tend to forget just how insanely expensive it was to do anything with computers back in those days.
Yeah, that. Lots and lots of that! $1995 was quite a bargin for a Terminal AND a MODEM. Contemporary CRTs ran over $1000, plus close to another $1000 for the MODEM. Display cards for CPM systems that did 80 columns (the "standard" from punch cards, you know) were expensive, and required special high-resolution CRTs with high-resolution phospors that were difficult to find and quite pricey. It wasn't until after widespread IBMPC Clones that "computer monitors" became common. (Original IBM PC Monochrome display adapter + (12inch) hidef green monitor was about $700.)