17 Apr
2011
17 Apr
'11
6:34 p.m.
CDC bought TRG, a company that made microwave stuff back in the 60s. CDC
also branched out into medical equipment, industrial controls, art books,
used cars, shotguns, and vodka.
--
Will
On Apr 17, 2011 6:54 PM, "Brent Hilpert" <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
Some old microwave stuff came into the radio museum lately, probably 60/70s
vintage, amongst which was a piece with a "Control Data - TRG Division"
label on it. Control Data was even imprinted on the waveguide adjustment
micrometers. Idle curiousity, but anyone know how CD was involved with
microwave waveguide componentry, or what the TRG Division was? (Chuck?) I
didn't know CD branched out into anything beyond computing.
17 Apr
17 Apr
11:01 p.m.
On 2011 Apr 17, at 6:34 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
CDC bought TRG, a company that made microwave stuff
back in the 60s.
CDC
also branched out into medical equipment, industrial controls, art
books,
used cars, shotguns, and vodka.
Sounds like somebody got a little happy with bags of excess cash. I
knew CDC was doing well in that era, but not that well.
I do remember hearing about medical and education stuff they were into,
I guess that was the stuff that looked good for publicity.
--
Will
On Apr 17, 2011 6:54 PM, "Brent Hilpert" <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
Some old microwave stuff came into the radio museum lately, probably
60/70s
vintage, amongst which was a piece with a "Control Data - TRG Division"
label on it. Control Data was even imprinted on the waveguide
adjustment
micrometers. Idle curiousity, but anyone know how CD was involved with
microwave waveguide componentry, or what the TRG Division was?
(Chuck?) I
didn't know CD branched out into anything beyond computing.
18 Apr
18 Apr
12:10 a.m.
On 17 Apr 2011 at 23:01, Brent Hilpert wrote:
Sounds like somebody got a little happy with bags of
excess cash. I
knew CDC was doing well in that era, but not that well.
Government sales was very good to CDC. I heard it mentioned that if
CDC had a new high-end processor, they automatically assumed that
FNWC (Fleet Numeric Weather Control in Monterey) would buy at least
one.
I remember that office correspondence during the late 60's / early
70's was all typed on typewriters with the really ugly OCR-A font
installed, evidently out of the vision of automating corporate
paperwork through OCR because of some early machine-reader firm that
was aquired. Eventually, the ugly typewriters were jettisoned.
Some good stuff and some hair-brained stuff came when CDC got SBC out
of the IBM lawsuit. It's hard to imagine that any firm would have
no clue of what to do with a coast-to-coast network of computer
systems, but there you go. Control Data Institute, the PLATO
education effort, Tickettron, and a bunch of very strange ventures
came out of the attempt to use the capability.
Commercial Credit was another late 60's acquisition (I guess it
evolved into Citicorp). If you were relocating, CCC handled your
home sale and financing. You could even deposit money in a CCC
account for better-than-market rates.
One thing that CDC had in abundance was Vice Presidents. At one
point, I remember counting 128 of them.
--Chuck
6:28 p.m.
In article <BANLkTi=ECzg3HhVdBxGigH0UuhhnTbv8nQ at mail.gmail.com>,
William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> writes:
CDC bought TRG, a company that made microwave stuff
back in the 60s. CDC
also branched out into medical equipment, industrial controls, art books,
used cars, shotguns, and vodka.
Vodka. Wow.
I wonder if any bottles survive?
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
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