- Licensed authorization of design features from IBM and United Shoe Machines’ Dynapert Division allows Universal to manufacture printed circuit board insertion equipment.
- 1st sale of Universal’s insertion equipment to Remington Rand Univac at Utica, NY credited to President Ahearn and Engineer, Phil Ragard.
- Transistors replace vacuum tubes in IBM Computer circuitry. Universal asked to design and manufacture preparation equipment for these and other odd shaped components.
- Universal’s first Sequencer—a machine to select random components from reels and respool insertion sequence is introduced; sold to Western Electric, Chicago.
- Second addition to Bevier Street adds 18,000 sq. ft. for machinery expansion.
- J.D. Ahearn becomes Chairman of the Board; F.H. Lawson becomes Company’s third President & employment hits 339.
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Company forms 20-year service club; honors 19 employees in first induction.
Uniregister® Mechanical Memory, produced in 1962-63. This shift register helped control component process systems.
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Universal forms Mechanized Electronic Assembly business unit (MEA) to provide subcontract component prepping, taping, and insertion services.
First commercial sale of insertion equipment: Fixed Center Distance (CD) Head Pantograph for axial components designed and built for Remington Rand’s Univac Division-Utica, NY in 1963.
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Unisert used reeled components from our “Taping Machine” to populate printed circuit boards. It worked by inserting axial components of a single configuration and value into a PCB.
First Sequencer allowed customers to prepare the assorted component bodies in sequenced order on reels
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The image above, shows the first VCD Inserter featuring a *solid-state N/C (Numerical Controlled) System enhancement.
When demand for component equipment rapidly grew, Pantograph inserters (shown in foreground) and Taping Machines (shown in background) were produced in the basement at Frederick St.
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Sales engineers and members of the Executive team tour production operations in 1965.
Process line manufactured for TRW in 1966. This Mylar Capacitor Process Line, included: feeding and lead straightening, test and three category sort, outer foil orientation, and printing infrared curing with controlled discharge.
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This is the first DIP Inserter that was displayed at a trade show in New York City in 1966.
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A couple additional points in history:
- Universal is once again sought for defense production during Vietnam War by Piccattiny Arsenal (Pennsylvania) and Motorola (Arizona).
- Television had gone from a novelty to the dominant medium of the age and one of the most profound communications tools ever.
- The first hand-held calculator was invented by Texas Instruments in 1967, at a cost of $2,500 each.
- The overall worldwide economic trend was one of prosperity, expansion of the middle class.
- In the second half of the decade, young people began to revolt against the conservative norms of the time, creating a “counterculture” that sparked a social revolution as a reaction against the conservatism, and the war in Vietnam.