What is "librascope"

Librascope was a Glendale, California division of General Precision, Inc., founded in 1937 by Lewis W. Imm to improve aircraft load balancing, and acquired by General Precision in 1941.

Librascope was a manufacturer of early digital computers sold in both the business and defense markets. They hired Stan Frankel, a Manhattan Project veteran and early ENIAC programmer, to design the LGP-30 desktop computer in 1956.

Librascope was eventually purchased by Singer Corporation and moved into the manufacture of marine systems and land-based C3 (Command, Control, Communication) systems for the international defense industry. The company specialized in fire control systems for torpedoes, though they continued to work on a variety of other smaller military contracts through the 1970s.

After Singer was taken over by corporate raider Paul Bilzerian, the company was sold to Loral Space & Communications in 1992. The division was eventually sold to Lockheed Martin and was eventually absorbed into the Lockheed Martin Federal Systems, but is now called Lockheed Martin NE&SS—Undersea Systems.

According to documents on history.nasa.gov, the Centaur second-stage rocket used a "Librascope 3". The Librascope for the Atlas-Centaur deep space launch vehicle was a 25-bit drum computer.