Historical Timeline of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company (1857-1962)

 

The following is a chronology of events.

 

1857 - William Seward Burroughs was born.

1885 - The first workable adding and listing machine is built and patented in St. Lewis, Missouri, by William Seward                       Burroughs. W. S. Burroughs files first patent application.

1886 - The American Arithmometer Company is formed on January 20. 

           The sales of the first adding and listing machine of the American Arithmometer Company began at a price of                     $475 each. Thomas Metcalfe was elected the first president of the American Arithmometer Company.

1890 - First machines demonstrated in banks in New York and St. Lewis. W. S. Burroughs sails to England with a                           new model developed to tabulate English currency in an effort to attract investors.

1891 - Charles E. Barney becomes the second president of the American Arithmometer Company. First                                         advertisement - The Burroughs Registering Accountant.

1895 - Total sales for 1895 were 284 machines. First dividend is paid to stockholders.

1898 - William Seward Burroughs dies at Citronelle, Alabama.

1900 - Total sales for 1900 were 972 machines. Won gold medal at the Paris Exposition.

1902 - Joseph Boyer became the third and last president of the American Arithmometer Company.

1903 - Joseph Boyer secretly enters into an agreement to acquire the Addograph Manufacturing Company, whose                         director is Hubert Hopkins. The name Hopkins later becomes famous for the Moon–Hopkins machine.  James                     Dalton, president of the Addograph Company, formed the Adding Typewriter Company that same year. It                           was later called the Dalton Adding Machine Company.

1904 - The Company moves to Detroit from St. Louis with all employees in one day on a special train called the                           "Clover Leaf Express."

1905 - The Company is renamed the Burroughs Adding Machine Company. Total sales for 1905 was 7,804 machines.

           Employment rises to 1,200.

1906 - Joseph Boyer attempts to acquire the Adder Machine Company. The Ford Motor Company produces a                                 business car equipped with a special rack large enough to carry an adding machine.  The car is known as the                     “Burroughs Special."

1907 - The 50,000th Burroughs machine is manufactured.

1908 - Burroughs acquires the Universal Adding Machine Company of Missouri.

1909 - Modern Business, an English office journal, says of the Burroughs adding machine it has just purchased, “It                       brings mechanical skill almost to the point of human intelligence…. it is amazing, but it is true."  Burroughs                       acquires the Pike Adding Machine Company of New Jersey.

1910 - The first “duplex” adding machine, featuring both subtotals and grand totals, is placed on the market.

1911 - The first subtracting-adding machine is produced.  It is regarded as a major forward step for bank postings.

           The first model of a Burroughs calculator is introduced.  Bearing a striking similarity to the Felt & Tarrant                           machine, litigation soon followed.

1912 - New salesmen receive four weeks of training in the operation and application of Burroughs machines.

1916 - Burroughs Clearing House magazine publication begins.

1917 - Burroughs Adding Machine Company of Canada, Ltd., in Winsor, Ontario, (20 miles from the Detroit home                         office) is organized.

1918 - Burroughs introduces a deluxe bookkeeping machine priced at $1,150 and equipped with a chain-drive                               motor return carriage. Construction begins on a five-floor building adjacent to the main factory in                                     Detroit. This building was later rebuilt to become the World Headquarters for the Burroughs Corporation in                         1966.

1920 - A total of 800,000 machines have been sold worldwide and employment has reached 12,000. Standish                               Backus is elected president, succeeding Joseph Boyer.

1921 - Burroughs purchases the Moon-Hopkins Billing Machine Company of Missouri, and the Moon-Hopkins                                 machine is redesigned and improved.  The machine combines an electronic typewriter with a calculating                           machine.  In the service ranks, the “Moon” as it was called, was a departure from past numeric-only                                 machines.

1924 - Burroughs issues stock and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Burroughs establishes major                                   operations in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

1925 - Burroughs introduces the “Burroughs Portable” adding machine, weighing less than 20 lbs. and selling for                           less than $100.  Two hundred a day are produced in Detroit and 22,000 are sold in the first eight months                           following release. Societe Anoyme Burroughs at Brussels, Belgium, is organized. Burroughs machines are                         being sold in 60 countries.  Special non-decimal machines are being built and used in a variety of                                     applications: by grocers in Petrograd, Russia, by clerks of the East Bengel Railway in India and the DeBeers                       diamond mines in Africa, and by Argentine cattle auctioneers.

1926 - The one-millionth Burroughs machine is produced at the Detroit Plant. A new series of Burroughs                                       bookkeeping machines is introduced.  It includes a “duplex subtractor” and “multiple register.”

1927 - Burroughs opens the Burroughs Farms as a Detroit-area employee recreation facility near Brighton,                                  Michigan. 

1928 - Burroughs introduces the first electric key-actuated calculating machines. Deutsche Burroughs                                           Rechenmaschinen, A.G. at Berlin, Germany, is organized.

1929 - Burroughs establishes major operations in Australia, Austria, Denmark, New Zealand, the Philippine Islands,                      South Africa, and Switzerland.

1930 - Burroughs introduces a new “Passbook Machine” for savings bank bookkeeping.

1931 - Burroughs introduces the “Burroughs Standard Typewriter” at national business shows in New York and                            Chicago.

1933 - The first duplex electric calculator is released.

1935 - The Burroughs product line now includes 450 standard models.

1938 - A major manufacturing facility in Plymouth, Michigan is completed and occupied.

1940 - Burroughs begins manufacturing a “service model” portable adding machine in khaki color for the                                    government.  Later production in Army green included a special keyboard with features for dust and spark                        protection.

1942 - Burroughs production of machines, like automobile production, is now restricted to the needs of the Army,                         Navy, lend-lease program, and war contractors.  Production of the Norden bombsight begins.

1943 - Standish Backus resigns as president of the Company because of ill health.  He is succeeded by Alfred J.                           Doughty.

1944 - Burroughs is awarded an Army-Navy “E” for outstanding achievement.

1946 - Burroughs efforts are again directed toward the commercial business machine market.  Forty-six new models                    are introduced in this year. James S. Coleman succeeds Alfred J. Doughty as president.

1947 - The Burroughs “B” trademark is adopted.

1948 - The Company’s revenues exceed $100 million and its bookkeeping machines are used by an estimated                               14,000 banks.

1949 - Burroughs acquires Mittag & Volger and Acme Carbon & Ribbon Company. Permanent facilities are                                     established for electronic research and development in the Philadelphia area.

1950 - The first Sensimatic accounting machine with programmed control panel is released.  It is considered the                           greatest advance in accounting machines in 25 years.

1951 - Burroughs Electronic Accounting Machine, named BEAM, begins development.  It is the first reach toward                           computer development at Burroughs.

1952 - Burroughs builds an electronic memory system for the ENIAC computer. 

1953 - The Company’s name is changed from the Burroughs Adding Machine Company to the Burroughs Corporation.

           Burroughs delivers UDEC (Unitized Digital Electronic Computer) to the Wayne State University Computation                       Lab in Detroit. UDEC weighs several tons, contains 10 miles of wire and cable, and uses 3,000 vacuum tubes                     and 7,000 transistors.

1954 - Burroughs new Research Center in Paoli, Pennsylvania, is opened. Burroughs introduces the E101 desk-size                       electronic digital computer for scientific engineering and business applications.  The system, which sells for                       $30,000, includes a magnetic drum memory. Burroughs new Sensimatic bank posting machine, embodying                       a number of automatic features, is introduced. Burroughs acquires Haydu Brothers of Plainfield, New Jersey,                     manufacturers of vacuum tubes and other electronic components, to produce special purpose electronic                             tubes for data display which have resulted from research at the Paoli laboratory.

1955 - Burroughs announces the Sensitronic financial accounting machine which reads from and writes on magnetic                     striped ledger cards and effectively doubles back posting production. Burroughs receives contracts from the                      U.S. Air Force and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build radar data processing equipment for                          use in SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment), a system designed to protect the continental United                          States from enemy air attack. Automatic bank bookkeeping systems are introduced.  These units - an                              imprinter, a coder, and a sorter - are designed to bring a high degree of automation to check                                            processing. Burroughs acquires the Todd Company of Rochester, New York, a major supplier of checks,                              business forms, and check writers and signers. The Company's total revenues exceed $200 million for the                          first time, reaching $218.6 million.

1956 - Burroughs acquires the ElectroData Corporation of Pasadena, California, a leading producer of computing                          hardware. Burroughs is awarded an Air Force contract to develop a transistorized guidance computer to                            direct the launch of the Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The Company's Great Valley                                    Laboratories, four miles from the Central Laboratory at Paoli, are opened.

1957 - Burroughs develops the Nixie electronic readout tube for electronic display of alphanumeric information. It is                    to become the industry's most widely used in-line display device. The Datatron 200 is introduced. The high-                      speed, large-scale computer rents for $15,000 monthly and has 20 times the productivity capacity of its price                    competitors.  It has internal magnetic core memory. Burroughs delivers the first ground guidance computer                      to the Air Force at Cape Canaveral, Florida, for use in guiding the launch of early Atlas ICBM.  It is the world's                    first operational transistorized computer.  A later version will guide the launch of every American astronaut to                    orbit the earth in the Mercury and Gemini programs.

1958 - Ray R. Eppert succeeds John S. Coleman as president of the Company after the latter's death.

          Burroughs is awarded contracts of more than $37 million to manufacturer additional Atlas missile guidance                        computers for Air Force space flight and ballistic missile launch sites. The United States Post Office awards                        Burroughs a $1.2 million contract for design, development, and production of automatic letter-sorting                                machines.  Each letter-sorter sorts 43,000 letters per hour.

1959 - The U.S. Air Force selects Burroughs as program manager for the ALRI (Airborne Long Range Input)                                program, a system for extending the SAGE air defense network seaward by placing radar and data                                    processing equipment aboard aircraft. Burroughs introduces the B 251 visible record computer.  The system                      reads data from checks and other financial documents, then automatically updates a customer's printer                            account record in a fraction of a second. Burroughs Atlas guidance computers sets records for reliability,                            averaging .988 percent in field operations.

1960 - Burroughs digital computers are delivered to the U.S. Navy for use in its Polaris program.  The "stabilization                      data computers" will provide a high degree of accuracy for navigation systems of nuclear-powered, Polaris-                        firing submarines.RVD (Radar Video Digitizer) and RVDP (Radar Video Data Processor) are developed in                            conjunction with Burroughs-FAA air traffic control study. Both systems change radar signals into digitized                          impulses that can be fed into a computer as useful data, allowing FAA flight controllers to instantly see                              approaching aircraft in crowded airport patterns.

1961 - Burroughs electronic ground guidance computer successfully guides Atlas, Mercury, and Ranger vehicles into                    orbit.  Since their installation at Cape Canaveral in 1957, they have never caused mission failure, error, or                        delay. Burroughs is named by the U.S. Air Force as hardware contractor for the NORAD Combat Operations                        Center in Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, Colorado.  The Company will design and install a giant                      computer complex and data display system for split-second evaluation of threats to the North American                            continent, using input from satellites and radar throughout the world. The Company announces its B 5000                        solid state modular data processing system, which is considered the most advanced business and scientific                        computer offered by any manufacturer.  Departing from traditional concepts of electronic computer design,                        the B 5000 is the first computer designed especially for automatic programming or the exclusive use of                           compiler languages. The B 5000 is later to be regarded as a decade ahead of its time in terms of competitive                     systems design due to its advanced features including "virtual memory." Burroughs introduces the B 200                           series of small to medium scale solid state computers.

1962 - Burroughs is presented President Kennedy's E for Export award for significant contributions to the national                       export program. The U.S. Air Force orders 17 D 825 systems for the BUIC (Back-Up Interceptor Control)                           continental air defense network, a back-up system to SAGE. A Burroughs guidance computer guides Project                       Mercury astronauts John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, and Wally Schirra into earth orbit and steers Ranger IV on                       its successful flight to the moon.