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News Archive - Electrosolids Electronic Calculator Announcement


Electronics Magazine, April 28, 1961

First known press release announcing the development of an all-transistorized desktop electronic calculator by the Computron Corp. subsidiary of Electrosolids, Inc. The Computron subsidiary was headed by Dr. Stanley Frankel, who was a nuclear physicist heavily involved in the Manhattan Project. After the project completed, he became deeply passionate about computing, and over time was involved in the development of a number of historical computers, including the General Precision LGP-30, the Packard Bell PB-250, as well as computer designs for General Electric, and other custom designs. Later, he became interested in the development of "personal" computing devices, which led to developments in electronic calculator technology, including the SCM Cogito 240, the added features (Square Root) Cogito 240SR, and later, the Diehl Combitron.

The Electrosolids calculator product announced in this article never came to pass, however, the working prototype design mentioned in the article drew the interest of Smith-Corona Marchant, and an agreement was made for SCM to purchase Computron from Electrosolids, along with the calculator design, which, in time, became the SCM Cogito 240.