The Bendix name in other cities — radios, instruments, computers

1937 – 1971

The electronics were not made here: The Bendix corporation's electronic products — the goods a reader most naturally pictures under the word technology — were designed and built in a ring of other cities, and this entry exists to keep the map straight. The Bendix Radio Division was formed in 1937 and set up in Baltimore, Maryland, first inside a General Motors plant at 920 East Fort Avenue and, four years later, in a larger plant at Towson; it made the aircraft radio transmitter-receivers and avionics the corporation was known for, and after the war the home and car radios that carried the name into American houses. The aircraft-instrument line ran through the Pioneer Instrument Company of Brooklyn — acquired by Bendix Aviation in 1928 — which became the Pioneer Instrument Division, moved to New Jersey, and in 1943 merged with the Eclipse Machine Company as the Eclipse-Pioneer Division at Teterboro; the Saturn V's inertial platform came out of that Teterboro division in the 1960s. The often-repeated sentence that Bendix made about 75 percent of the avionics in American warplanes has two carriers in the record reached: the Bendix Radio Foundation's account, which states it as "approximately 75 percent of U.S. aircrafts" using Bendix avionics, and the corporation's standard online history, where the sentence stands flagged as needing a citation in its own text. This build's Stories Told section has tested the claim as a claim and carries the test; the point that belongs to this section is narrower and settles the local question by itself — whatever the corporation's share of American avionics was, the radios were Baltimore's work, not South Bend's.

The computers, and the headquarters' own geography: In 1956 the corporation's Computer Division, seated at Los Angeles, California, introduced the Bendix G-15 — a drum-memory machine about the size of two filing cabinets, designed by Harry Huskey, who had worked with Alan Turing on the ACE in Britain, and sold at $49,500 for the base system. Some 400 were built; the machine is sometimes described as a first personal computer for its Intercom interpretive system, a description printed here as the record gives it. Control Data Corporation took over the Bendix computer division in 1963. No part of the G-15's design or manufacture is placed in South Bend by any source reached — and by 1956 there was the less reason to expect it: the corporation's own headquarters had left the city nearly two decades before, moving to Detroit in the year after Ernest R. Breech succeeded Vincent Bendix as president, on the standard company history, and again in 1971 to Southfield, Michigan. South Bend kept the works — the brakes, wheels and landing gear of the entries around this one. It did not keep the corporation.

Sources:

1. Bendix Radio Foundation / Radiomuseum.org, Bendix Radio Division manufacturer record — the division formed 1937; the Baltimore plant at 920 E. Fort Avenue, then Towson four years later; the foundation's "approximately 75 percent of U.S. aircrafts in the war used Bendix avionics."
2. Bendix Corporation, standard company record — the radio division established 1937; "about 75% of all avionics in US aircraft," the sentence standing flagged "[citation needed]" in the text itself; radar equipment made during and after the war; the 1956 G-15 and the 1963 Control Data takeover of the computer division.
3. Pioneer Instrument Company, company record — founded Brooklyn 1919; acquired by Bendix Aviation 1928; the move to New Jersey; the 1943 merger with Eclipse as the Eclipse-Pioneer Division; the Teterboro plant.
4. Bendix G-15, machine record — introduced 1956 by the Bendix Corporation's Computer Division, Los Angeles, California; chief designer Harry Huskey; base price $49,500; about 400 built; Control Data's 1963 takeover; the "first personal computer" description as given in the record.
5. International Directory of Company Histories, Bendix Corporation (encyclopedia.com) — Breech's election as president on Vincent Bendix's resignation and the headquarters' relocation to Detroit the following year; the headquarters relocated again in 1971, to Southfield, Michigan; the 1951 Mishawaka plant.