FACIT EDB

FACIT EDB was a vacuum tube based computer that was manufactured by Åtvidabergs Industrier AB after the designs for BESK, that had been developed by the Swedish Board for Computing Machinery (Matematikmaskinnämnden).

FACIT EDB was the first fully Swedish series production computer. EDB stod for "Electronic Computer Processing". The manufacturing was done by Åtvidabergs Industrier department of electronics in Stockholm and came to fruition by recruiting 18 key persons from the Swedish Board for Computing Machinery (Matematikmaskinnämndens). Internally nicknamed "the Besk boys". In 1960 the department became Facit Electronics with a new factory in Solna. The recruitment of people from Swedish Board for Computing Machinery were approved by the Finance minister Gunnar Sträng. That thought that production of computers was not something the government should be involved in. In 1963 a FACIT EDB-3 was installed at National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) which enabled use at any time of the day.