Potter Instrument Company was founded by John Taft Potter (1911–1987) in
Long Island in 1942.
National Cash Register would later work upon the patent to create
Card Random-Access Memory, or CRAM, which was much more commercially successful than Potter's own device. Potter's disk drives were praised for being marginally faster than their IBM counterparts while costing far less. They would eventually become a major player in the
mainframe and
minicomputer hard drive market. Potter also specialized in
data-entry terminals and
chain printers. At their peak in the 1970s, Potter was the largest computer company in Long Island, employing over 1,500 people across four plants. In the late 1960s the firm entered the computer rental business, leasing out IBM mainframes to large businesses, following in the footsteps of large players like
Itel and
Foxboro. This would eventually become Potter's undoing, as in 1971 IBM severely cut their leasing fees, reducing the demand for third-party lessor such as Potter. John T. Potter resigned as president and
COO in January 1973, while remaining
CEO and chairman of the company. Two years later, in April 1975, Potter filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy and shut down their Long Island operations. While the bulk of Potter's facilities remained physically locked up amid bankruptcy proceedings, the company's 100-worker military products division continued to operate in spite of orders from above. In August 1975, the division was acquired by Jan Stenbeck, a 31-year-old businessman from Sweden, and rechristened Miltope Corporation. Miltope thrived off their military contracts and is still in business , while Potter dissolved sometime in the late 1970s, after John T. Potter had been ousted as chairman and CEO in 1978. ==References==