Our Soemtron type 214 calculator was also known as the 1.3 SAR IIc

Type: 214
Dimensions (LxWxH ): 45 x 35 x 25 cm (with controls)
Weight: 21 kg
Colour: gray - blue / gray
Material: Metal
Multiplier works with numeric keypad block
Variants: early models complete with numeric keypad and later machines with square keys and tab keys;
Soemtron 214 without a single deletion of the rows of keys

The SAR IIc was a four-species machine with automatic multiplication and division.  Other facilities of the SAR IIc ("Super Automatic with reverse transfer") are:

• minus multiplication,
• interruption of carriage return in the multiplication,
• isolation of deletion of the main and revolution counter
• manually reversible rotation of the quotient of the work.

The calculator is from 1964.  Many of the calculators were for export. One of the most important customers was the Soviet Union, where the model was sold under the name ВММ SAR IIc-2.

It cost DM3250 ($816) when new in 1964.

Our type 214 machine was very kindly donated by Aubrey Thyer.

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History of Soemtron

The German "Rheinmetall" heavy engineering works was established by Heinrich Ehrhardt in Düsseldorf in 1889 as the "Rheinische Metallwaren und Maschinenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft" (Rhein Metalwares and Engine Works Corporation) and registered on May 7th 1889. In the same year production started in rented accommodation in Dusseldorf's Talstrasse, and almost within a year they are employing 1,400 people producing 800,000 bullets a day. In 1901 a munitions factory was then acquired in Sömmerda, a small town near Erfurt in Thuringia, Germany, on the Unstrut river. Following the first world war the Sömmerda factory started producing office machines, typewriters, mechanical calculators, adding and listing machines and they continued to further develop their range machines upto the second world war in 1939-45.

Following the second world war, the Sömmerda factory then found itself in the newly formed East Germany, with development and production now continuing as a state-run enterprise, but using the pre-war Rheinmetall name and logo. In 1957, a group of young electronics engineers under the collective direction of Heinz Skolaude brought V.E.B. Büromaschinenwerk Sömmerda into the age of electronics. In 1960 the name was changed to "Supermetall" and then later to the "Soemtron" name in 1962, when they exhibited at the Leipzig Fair of that year an electronic Fakturierautomaten - the model EFA 380. 1963 saw the next model the EFA 381 with magnetic core memory.

When the new brand name "Soemtron", composed from the words "SOEM"merda and Elek"TRON"ik, appeared, the long running legal dispute with the Düsseldorf Rheinmetall Group to the trademark "Rheinmetall" was resolved, along with use of the company logo and patent rights. Previously to this, machines were sold under the trade name "Supermetal". In 1966 V.E.B. Büromaschinenwerk Sömmerda then released the first of three electronic calculators. These models, with germanium transistors and Ferritkernspeichern, were produced in several versions. Production of mechanical calculators ceased at the factory in 1967 with the firm moving over to full production of electronic calculators and computers right up until they finally ceased all production in 1991.

This information is provided courtesy of Mike Hatch and soemtron.org.

Manufacturer: Soemtron
Date: 1964

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH12155. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.

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