Delta

Delta had a formal agreement with DEC which supplied them with only the most integral components, while other components (for charging, cooling, and casing) and applicative software were manufactured by Delta itself. Because Delta employed an educated and experienced workforce, members of which studied at the Department of Computer and Information Science at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Department of Digital Engineering at the Jožef Stefan Institute, and the Department for the Representation of Foreign Companies at the Slovene commercial company Elektrotehna, the company developed and grew very quickly and in 1977 created its first computer named Delta 340.

The computer was made according to an original design and configuration, the only DEC components it featured being its PDP processor and its operating software, while other components were made by Delta itself or purchased from other global suppliers. Having its own applicative software and homegrown electronic solutions enabled Delta to avoid licence fees that were present in the development of former computers. Despite that, the Delta 340 computer was compatible with DEC computers. Members of Delta were now faced with an even harder task – successfully selling the product and asserting themselves as a company, manufacturing computers made exclusively in Yugoslavia. 1978 saw them perform an enormous marketing move, presenting the computer to Tito on his birthday. To mark the occasion, they developed a programme which upon presentation started playing the national anthem of Yugoslavia and displayed Tito’s portrait on the monitor. The stunt was extremely successful and won over Tito’s affection which was instrumental in their survival in the following months. Soon after that same year Delta separated itself from Elektrotehna and instead started linking up with Iskra and Gorenje to form a company named Iskra Delta.

Picture 1: Delta računalniški sistemi (Delta Computer Systems)