This Day in History

December 31, 1976

Microcomputer Pioneer CROMEMCO is Incorporated

Harry Garland and Roger Melen, two roommates at Stanford University, form CROMEMCO, a company to manufacture microprocessor-based computers. CROMEMCO was an acronym for their college residence: CROthers MEMorial Hall + CO (company). A year before, in December 1975, they proposed to attach their Cyclops camera to the Altair, for use as a security camera, and a month later they received Altair number 0002. In October 1976 CROMEMCO advertised Z80 S-100 processor board. In 1983 the business grew to a maximum size of 450 employees and $42,000,000 in sales. In 1986 CROMEMCO merged with Dynatech, Inc. In 1990 Dr. Garland and professor Melen founded of Canon Research Center America Inc., an entrepreneurial subsidiary of Canon K.K. of Japan, dedicated to developing imaging technologies and products.