Laboratory for impulse technology

Laboratory for impulse technology
legal form	GmbH
founding	July 1, 1952
resolution	1st October 1968
Seat	Paderborn
Number of employees	580 (1967)
sales	52 million DM (1967)

The Laboratory for Impulse Technology ( LFI ) was founded in Essen in 1952 by Heinz Nixdorf and was the predecessor company of Nixdorf Computer AG .

history

As a working student at the American office machine manufacturer Remington Rand Corp. Employed in Frankfurt am Main , Heinz Nixdorf got to know the development of digital circuits for multiplication and balancing works. However, the company management did not pursue the project any further, the market value of the calculating machine was not recognized, whereupon Nixdorf, who recognized the market potential, presented his concept of an electronic computer based on radio tubes to several large companies in North Rhine-Westphalia . At the Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke ( RWE ), Nixdorf met with interest and trust, so that he was given a development contract worth 30,000 D-Marks and on July 1, 1952, he founded the laboratory for pulse technology. At the beginning, RWE provided the premises.

Heinz Nixdorf at his workplace in the Rheinisch Westfälische Elektrizitätswerk in Essen, 1952.

In order to cope with the project, Nixdorf hired his first employee, a well-trained radio and television technician, on September 1, 1952. In 1952, the first electronic computer on a radio tube basis - called ES - was delivered to RWE's accounting department and further developments - ES 12 and ES 24 - were operated in the following year. The innovation and expansion phase of the young company proceeded in great strides, so that the LFI quickly developed from a producer of calculating machines for RWE AG in the 1950s to a supplier of electronic calculating units for important office machine manufacturers such as Exacta Büromaschinen GmbH - from 1963 Wanderer-Werke - in Cologne and the Compagnie des Machines Bull in Paris . In 1954, due to a lack of space, Nixdorf was forced to rent additional workrooms 300 meters from the RWE building; the LFI already employed ten technicians. In 1958 Nixdorf hired a development engineer. Until then, the company founder had carried out all development work himself. New electronic computers were constantly being developed, such as the electronically multiplying Multitronic 6000 booking machine for Exacta, of which 50 were initially planned, but 2,000 were produced, or the Wanderer Conti presented in 1963, which was once the world's first desktop calculator with a built-in printer . In 1965, the Logatronic, distributed by Wanderer, followed, which the LFI further developed in 1967 into the Nixdorf Universal Computer 820 . The rapid expansion of the company meant that as early as 1957, the first rooms in Nixdorf's native Paderborn on the Kassel Wall were rented. A year later, Nixdorf and the entire company moved from Essen to Paderborn and the first factory building was built in 1961 on Pontanusstrasse, which now houses the Technical City Hall of Paderborn. In 1967 Nixdorf saw the opportunity to no longer just act as a supplier , but to take responsibility for selling the products himself. The first branches were founded and the LFI showed its presence by setting up a second depot in Berlin . The company gained public awareness in 1968 with the purchase and takeover of its largest customer, the Wanderer-Werke in Cologne.

Innovative Products

1952: ES - First German electronic computer on a tube basis, which was suitable for connection to electromagnetic punch cards. This makes the LFI the oldest German manufacturer of electronic computers.
1955: EM 22 electron multiplier - arithmetic unit built up with high vacuum tubes for the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of numbers that were transferred from punch card fields into the registers of the EM 22. The EM models were used in particular by electricity companies in order to be able to create monthly bills for customers: Without multiplication (consumption times consumer tariff) and adding a fixed value (meter rental) this would not have been possible.
1959: Multitronic - first booking machine on the world market with an electronic multiplier.
1962: Conti - the world's first desktop calculator with a built-in printer.
1963: Gamma 172 - Instead of the bulky and heat-generating tubes, as was still the case with the ES and EM, transistor technology was used in the Gamma 172. The computing speed for multiplication and division was a constant 25 milliseconds.
1965: Logatronic - The Logatronic marks the beginning of medium-sized data technology and was at the same time the basis for the pioneering role of the LFI and later of Nixdorf Computer AG in this segment. For the first time, it was possible to use IT for small and medium-sized companies at a reasonable price-performance ratio.
1967: Nixdorf 820 - Further development of the Logatronic to a magnetic account computer as well as to data acquisition systems and online terminals. Breakthrough in the IT market for the LFI.

In 1967, the LFI achieved a market share of more than 60% in the area of computers in the price range between 25,000 D-Mark and 100,000 D-Mark . The turnover in 1967 was 52 million Deutschmarks.

The successor company Nixdorf Computer AG

With the acquisition of the Wanderer shares and thus the Wanderer-Werke, the purchase price was 17.2 million D-Marks, Nixdorf no longer only had efficient development and production departments, but also had its own sales structure. With the takeover of Wanderer's shares by Nixdorf in April 1968, the former Wanderer factories and the Laboratory for Impulse Technology merged to form Nixdorf Computer AG (NCAG), based in Paderborn , on October 1st of the same year .

bibliography

Berg, Christian, Heinz Nixdorf. A biography, (studies and sources on Westphalian history, vol. 82), Schoeningh , Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich 2016, ISBN 978-3-506-78227-4 .
Klaus Kemper: Heinz Nixdorf - a German career . Verlag Moderne Industrie, Landsberg / Lech 1986, ISBN 3-478-30120-3 ; New edition 2001.
Heinz Nixdorf - Pictures of Life . Heinz Nixdorf Foundation, Paderborn 2004 (to be acquired at the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum)
Annual report of Nixdorf Computer AG from 1968; Archive of the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum.

Individual evidence

^ Annual report of Nixdorf Computer AG 1968, pp. 5–7.
↑ Ulrich Fritsch: The new dimension. Future strategies of international top managers . Düsseldorf / Vienna 1986, p. 138: “In 1952 Heinz Nixdorf founded the“ Laboratory for Impulse Technology ”in Essen: Here he developed a system for the automation of accounting on behalf of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke (RWE). The 'Laboratory for Impulse Technology', which moved from Essen to Paderborn in 1958, set significant accents for the international office machine industry with further innovative developments. "
↑ Calculator for America . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1968, p. 57 ( online ). “Compared to the mainframe computers from IBM, RCA, Siemens and AEG (price: up to two million marks), Nixdorf's device is a computer for everyone. As a kind of advanced invoicing and booking machine, it can be fully used by small and medium-sized companies. ... The big competitors set up their expensive systems at a central point, to which the entire flood of paper of a corporation must be funneled in order to be able to be evaluated. Nixdorf's device, on the other hand, was developed as a so-called data terminal, which already records all invoicing processes at the accountant.
↑ Big in the small . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1971, p. 68 ( online ). “In 1952, after studying physics and business administration, Heinz Nixdorf set up his own small laboratory for pulse technology. The number of his employees grew to 50 by 1961 and to 580 in 1967, but since then to around 5,000. Over the past five years, sales have increased by a thousand percent to 263 million marks. The company owes this steep course above all to the business with the small universal computer "Nixdorf 820", which currently costs between 30,000 and 200,000 marks and is therefore one of the cheapest devices on the market. "

51.714613 8.725505Coordinates: 51 ° 42 ′ 52.6 " N , 8 ° 43 ′ 31.8" E

[1] Annual report of Nixdorf Computer AG 1968, pp. 5–7.

[2] Ulrich Fritsch: The new dimension. Future strategies of international top managers . Düsseldorf / Vienna 1986, p. 138: “In 1952 Heinz Nixdorf founded the“ Laboratory for Impulse Technology ”in Essen: Here he developed a system for the automation of accounting on behalf of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke (RWE). The 'Laboratory for Impulse Technology', which moved from Essen to Paderborn in 1958, set significant accents for the international office machine industry with further innovative developments. "

[3] Calculator for America . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1968, p. 57 ( online ). “Compared to the mainframe computers from IBM, RCA, Siemens and AEG (price: up to two million marks), Nixdorf's device is a computer for everyone. As a kind of advanced invoicing and booking machine, it can be fully used by small and medium-sized companies. ... The big competitors set up their expensive systems at a central point, to which the entire flood of paper of a corporation must be funneled in order to be able to be evaluated. Nixdorf's device, on the other hand, was developed as a so-called data terminal, which already records all invoicing processes at the accountant.

[4] Big in the small . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1971, p. 68 ( online ). “In 1952, after studying physics and business administration, Heinz Nixdorf set up his own small laboratory for pulse technology. The number of his employees grew to 50 by 1961 and to 580 in 1967, but since then to around 5,000. Over the past five years, sales have increased by a thousand percent to 263 million marks. The company owes this steep course above all to the business with the small universal computer "Nixdorf 820", which currently costs between 30,000 and 200,000 marks and is therefore one of the cheapest devices on the market. "