Talk:Zenith Data Systems

Zenith Data Systems has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: April 24, 2023. (Reviewed version).

This article was nominated for deletion on October 1, 2005. The result of the discussion was Keep.

A fact from Zenith Data Systems appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 4 May 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Zenith Data Systems's $242-million contract with the United States Department of Defense in 1986 was the largest federal computer contract until then?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/May. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Zenith Data Systems.

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Zenith Data Systems/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 14:12, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:12, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Earwig finds no issues. Just one possible image issue:

File:Zenith Data Systems logo 1979.svg is claimed to not meet the threshold of originality, but that "Z" is carefully designed. I've asked another editor who is more experienced than I am with image issus for their opinion and will add a comment here when she replies.
Not an issue, per Nikki, so I'm striking this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:14, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Will look at the sources next. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:38, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sources are reliable. Spotchecks -- footnote numbers refer to this version.

FN 14 cites "Targeted for professionals, it had an S-100 bus, high performance color graphics, an 8-bit Z80 and an 8088 processor. It could either boot the CP/M operating system, or Z-DOS, a modified OEM version of MS-DOS that was not fully PC compatible; in particular, the floppy-disks were not IBM-PC compatible." I don't see anything in the source that covers "high performance color graphics, an 8-bit Z80 and an 8088 processor", or the mention of the floppies or IBM PC compatibility, for the Z-100.
- Done Added some references and cleared up some incorrect facts left over from an earlier revision of the page. DigitalIceAge (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FN 1 cites "In October 1983, the United States Navy and Air Force awarded a $27-million computer contract to ZDS. In 1984 ZDS won a $100-million contract with the United States military for Tempest-shielded computers. In 1986 it won two other large contracts, one for portable computers for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and a $242 million contract—the largest in history—for 90,000 computers to the United States Department of Defense." Verified, but please change the page numbers in the reference to include D4, as some of the details are on that page. I think "Tempest-shielded" makes no sense; I'd suggest simply quoting "eavesdrop-proof" from the NYT article instead.
- Done DigitalIceAge (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FN 21 cites "A ploy to boost sales of its desktop computers by requiring its laptop dealers also sell their desktop models backfired, with an estimated 1,000 dealers across the United States pulling all ZDS products from their inventory in protest of this policy. After being dealt this blow, Zenith Electronics cut spending to ZDS' research and development operations in preparation of selling the subsidiary to the highest bidder. This had the effect of eliminating new product releases, causing sales to free fall as its existing offerings soon became obsolete." Verified.
FN 67 cites "In February 1996, Packard Bell acquired Zenith Data Systems from Groupe Bull, in a three-way deal which saw Groupe Bull and Japanese electronics conglomerate NEC increasing their existing stakes in Packard Bell." Verified.
FNs 39 & 45 cite "After shuffling its executive team a couple times throughout 1990, Enrico Pesatori was named the first permanent CEO of ZDS under Bull's ownership in January 1991." More or less verified, but I only see one executive team reshuffle in 1990 -- am I missing something?
- Done I gleaned a second shuffling from the use of the word "reshuffled" in the source (as in, they shuffled, then reshuffled), but to be on the safe side of WP:V I'll just say they reshuffled once. DigitalIceAge (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FN 21 cites "ZDS in 1994 also introduced the Z-Station 500, a desktop workstation, and the Z-Noteflex, a new line of notebooks." Verified.
FN 54 cites "The total sales for 1992 were estimated at $900 million—55 percent of which represented sales in Europe, and 40 percent of which represented sales from notebook models." Verified.

A couple of tweaks needed in response to these, plus adding a source per the first bullet above. I'll read through the article and add comments below next, probably this afternoon. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:14, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking up this review Mike Christie! I'll address the above shortly. DigitalIceAge (talk) 18:55, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've copyedited a bit; please revert if I've screwed anything up.

"This monitor program originated with the Heathkit H8 computer; PAM-8 (Panel Monitor-8), included in ROM, allowed the user to trace or resume program execution, change machine settings, run diagnostic routines, or boot from a specific device." Looks like this is missing an "and" in the middle.
- Done, I think. DigitalIceAge (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  Actually it was OK as you had it -- I missed that semicolon. But it's also fine this way. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:07, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~"ZDS reached a peak employment figure in 1990 with 1,800 from their St. Joseph, Michigan, headquarters": "from" seems an odd usage -- I would expect "at" or "in".~~
- Done I also found a new source that puts the number of global employees of ZDS that year at 3,800. I believe the 1,800 figure quoted in Paul Dodson's lament is soley referring just to ZDS' St. Joseph HQ. DigitalIceAge (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  Tweaked. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:07, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~"These efforts acclimated in the release of the Z-Series laptops in June 1992." "Acclimated" is not the word you're looking for; are you thinking of "culminated"?~~
- Done, d'oh! DigitalIceAge (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~"pen-capable": this means a stylus and something like a touch-screen? Can we link to something suitable that explains this?~~
- Changed to 'pen-enabled' and linked to Pen computing. "Pen-capable" was a buzzphrase in the 90s to refer to convertible laptops that could be used as touch-screen palmtops but were more often than not used as regular laptops due to their bulk and lack of compelling software. DigitalIceAge (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~"and the company between 1997 and 1998 posting losses totaling more than $1 billion": ungrammatical; looks like it should be "posted".~~
- Done DigitalIceAge (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's everything from a read through. The article is in good shape. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:35, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for the thorough review, @Mike Christie: I hope I've addressed everything. :) DigitalIceAge (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Everything is fixed, so I'm going to go ahead and pass this. I was a bit concerned at the problem found in the first spotcheck, but the remainder were clean or almost so, so I think this is over the line. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:07, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Bruxton (talk) 20:34, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(

Comment or view
Article history

)

... that Zenith Data Systems, once a large manufacturer of computer systems, benefited from their parent company being a manufacturer of TVs? Source: "Zenith Radio Company supplies color and black-and-white monitors at cost to ZDS for its systems, so ZDS avoids higher OEM prices" (InfoWorld, 1982).
- ALT1: ... that Zenith Data Systems's US$242-million contract with the United States Department of Defense in 1986 was the largest federal computer contract up to that point? Source: "And a few days later Zenith won the largest microcomputer contract the Federal Government has ever awarded - a $242 million order to supply 90,000 desktop computers to the Defense Department" (New York Times, 1986).
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/La Carcacha

Improved to Good Article status by DigitalIceAge (talk). Self-nominated at 15:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Zenith Data Systems; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]