Sylvania Electric Products Inc. was an American manufacturer of diverse electrical equipment, including at various times radio transceivers, vacuum tubes, semiconductors, and mainframe computers such as MOBIDIC. They were one of the companies involved in the development of the COBOL programming language. History The Hygrade Sylvania Corporation was formed when NILCO, Sylvania and Hygrade Lamp Company merged into one company in 1931. In 1939, Hygrade Sylvania started preliminary research on fluorescent technology, and later that year, demonstrated the first linear, or tubular, fluorescent lamp. It was featured at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Sylvania was also a manufacturer of both vacuum tubes and transistors. In 1942, the company changed its name to Sylvania Electric Products Inc. During World War II, Sylvania was chosen from among several competing companies to manufacture the miniature vacuum tubes used in proximity fuze shells due to its quality standards and mass production capabilities. In 1959, Sylvania Electronics merged with General Telephone to form General Telephone and Electronics (GTE). Sylvania developed the earliest flash cubes for still cameras, later selling the technology to Eastman Kodak Company, and later a 10-flash unit called FlipFlash, as well as a line of household electric light bulbs, which continued during GTE's ownership and today is sold by Osram Sylvania. In June 1964, Sylvania unveiled a color TV picture tube in which europium-bearing phosphor was used for a much brighter, truer red than was possible before. Through merger and acquisitions, the company became a significant, but never dominating supplier of electrical distribution equipment, including transformers and switchgear, residential and commercial load centers and breakers, pushbuttons, indicator lights, and other hard-wired devices. All were manufactured and distributed under the brand name GTE Sylvania, with the name Challenger used for its light commercial and residential product lines. GTE Sylvania contributed to the technological advancement of electrical distribution products in the late 1970s with several interesting product features. At the time, they were the leading supplier of vacuum cast coil transformers, manufactured in their Hampton, Virginia plant. Their transformers featured aluminum primary winding and were cast using relatively inexpensive molds, allowing them to produce cast coil transformers in a variety of KVA capacities, primary and secondary voltages and physical coil sizes, including low profile coils for mining and other specialty applications. They also developed the first medium voltage 3 phase panel that could survive a dead short across two phases. Their patented design