Testing Machines history

First filed in 1937 and updated a few years later by Reynold Johnson: a patent for a “scoring apparatus.”

Later, in 1939, an alternative to the Vickers test was introduced by Fredrick Knoop at the US National Bureau of Standards.

During the 1950’s, Instron, in Massachusetts, pioneered the use of closed loop systems on tensile testing instruments.

Rather than sense pencil marks’ lead electronically, his system – patented in 1955 – identified the marks optically.

Under co-founder Vic Grinich, Fairchild produced a series of in-house transistor testers beginning with the Type 1A in 1959.

The Type 4 tester was introduced for public sale at the March 1961 IRE Show.

TI's Transistor and Component Tester (TACT) introduced in 1962 served the company and its customers for many years.

In 1966 DeWolff and Milt Collins designed the model J259 based on the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-8 minicomputer as the industry's first computer-controlled test system.

Optical mark recognition is the technology used by the company Scantron (founded in 1972), whose name has become synonymous with the paper forms used for multiple choice testing.

In 1982, Amsler was acquired by the Roell company.

The company was acquired by Roell in 1986.

During the early 1990’s this technology was introduced first to Rockwell testers, and later to Knoop/Vickers, as well as Brinell systems.

First testXpo at Zwick In 1992, the first testXpo took place at Zwick in Ulm: one day, fifteen exhibits, four technical presentations and nearly 200 visitors.