Title:
Oral History of George Comstock

Date:
2003-08-13

Pages:
51 p.

Interviewer:
Hendrie, Gardner; interviewer and cameraperson
Comstock, George; interviewee

Abstract:
George Comstock began his career in the materials sciences, designing pressure vessels for the Norton Company. He moved into the computing field when he joined the Potter Instrument Company and started working on random access memory and tape drive design. In 1964 Comstock received an offer to join the Friden Calculator division of Singer, located in San Leandro, California. At Friden, Comstock's career where he helped move the company into the electronic age through the design of a multi-user Computyper, one of the early minicomputers for business applications. Friden's decision to drop the disk drive project Comstock and Andrew Gabor had been working on, led to the two men's decision to found Diablo Systems, which opened its doors in 1969. Diablo Systems produced hard disk drives that were resold by the DEC and Data General, but they are best known for the Diablo 630 daisywheel printer. After leaving Diablo in 1977, Comstock started Durango Systems.

Keywords:
Comstock, George
Worcester Tech
Grumman Aircraft
Norton Company
Potter Instrument Company
Potter Model 905 Tape Handler
Gabor, Andrew
Friden Calculator
Flexowriter
Computyper
Singer System 10
Diablo Systems
Diablo 630 daisywheel printer
Itel Corporation
Durango Systems
Durango F85

Rights:
Computer History Museum

102658008