In 1963 the company was purchased by the Singer Corporation.
Friden's company introduced a calculator that included a square root function in 1952, then went on in 1963 to introduce the model EC-130, the fully transistorized electronic calculator. Ĭarl Friden already had a number of patents to his credit, including an early calculating machine. Both companies were affiliated with American Forest Products Corporation. Gruenhagen (1885–1968), both executives with the American Forest Products Corporation, together with their associates, J.
Johnson and his brother-in-law Charles T. Four investors came to the firm's aid with funds to add to Carl Friden's limited finances. Friden Calculating Machine CompanyĬarl Friden left the Marchant Calculating Machine Company during the Great Depression in 1934 to establish his own calculator company at San Leandro, California. His machines were robust and quickly became popular. Friden continued to develop the modified-pinwheel machines at Marchant during the 1920s. While there he introduced his new design which reduced the number of calculator parts by one-third, thus increasing their reliability. įriden became the chief designer of the Marchant Calculating Machine Company. Government made Marchant discontinue its current model because it violated some German patents, Carl Friden filled the void with his own model. He found his place in the Marchant Calculating Machine Co. Two years later he headed to San Francisco on an American steamer to get part way home, but that is where he stayed. In the interim he worked on his ideas for designing a more reliable calculator.
In 1914, he traveled to Australia with the same purpose in mind, but was stranded there when World War I broke out. In 1913, Friden traveled to in London, England, to assemble match machines for his company. Friden became a mechanical engineer representing the Swedish Match Trust. In 1912, he graduated as a mechanical engineer from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. A company biography of Carl Friden from the 1960s or before stated that he was born Carl Bengtsson, but later took Fridén as his surname. Carl Mauritz Fredrik Friden was born in Alvesta in Kronoberg County, Sweden.