Viatron was founded in 1967 by engineers from Mitre Corporation led by Dr. Edward M. Bennett and Dr. Joseph Spiegel.

The basic system included a microprocessor with 512 characters of read/write RAM memory, a keyboard, a 9-inch (23 cm) CRT display and two cartridge tape drives.

In 1968 Bennett claimed that by 1972 Viatron would have delivered more "digital machines" than had "previously been installed by all computer makers."

[4] As announced the System 21 line consisted of the following:[5] The Viatron CPUs differed in memory size and interrupt levels – 2 on the 2140 and 4 on the 2150.

There were 85 instructions, some of which had both standard and extended forms: Viatron commissioned Harry N. Peble to design the Viafont-X, a patented typeface (1971) readable by both humans and machines, for use in conjunction with the company's optical character recognition devices.