Datasaab

Saab needed computing power to design aircraft, so in the 1950s it built its own machines, starting with SARA, based on drawings of the state-built BESK. The same group produced the navigation computer for the Viggen fighter and the transistorised D21 (1962), which sold to customers in Sweden and its neighbours. It was one of the few times a Swedish computer maker held its own against the American giants, if only on a small scale.

In the 1970s the focus moved to bank terminals and office systems such as Alfaskop. Ericsson took over in 1981 and the business became Ericsson Information Systems. A less flattering footnote is the Datasaab affair: an air traffic control system sold to the Soviet Union containing American components that export rules said could not go there, for which Ericsson ended up paying a fine.