ISEC 250 Custom Carrying Case
YEAR: 1967
ITEM: Peripheral Device
COMPANY: ISEC Corporation
COUNTRY: USA
IN OUR COLLECTION: Yes
Custom wooden case designed to hold the ISEC 250 analog computer.
We have only the custom case, not the computer...at least not yet. We do not know the origins of the case other than it came from Moose Creek in Ontario, Canada. We don't know how it became separated from its computer. (Perhaps a disgruntled stock analyst defenestrated the computer from an Ottawa skyscraper after a particularly bad recommendation!) The case is matte black on the outside with a red-felt lining on the inside and it measures 17.5 x 9 x 10 inches. (The computer that it was designed for measured 16.5 x 7 x 9 inches.)
The ISEC 250 computer was a single-purpose computer...it was designed to assess the risk involved in buying and selling stocks. The Wall Street stock analyst would enter the latest information on a particular stock along with current market trends and the computer would make a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold the stock. The computer had a meter that showed that the stock was either a HIGH RISK (in red) or a LOW RISK (in green) or somewhere in between. The ISEC 250 was preloaded with information on over 2,000 stocks.
For more information, see the user manual here.
Viewer Stories & Comments
There's a beautiful ISEC 250 on eBay right now.
Documents
Documents for this item have not yet been scanned or not yet posted. There are a lot of pages...contact us if you have an immediate need. (Although there are not a lot of "immediate needs" for a 70+ year old computer!)
Exceedingly Rare
Both the computers and their cases are exceedingly rare.
We know of one computer and case sold at Sotheby's in 2019. Another case (and computer) is in the collection at the Old Computer Museum.
Vernon Vogt of Seattle has a computer but we are not sure if the case is with it. It may be the same computer and case that was sold at Sotheby's. I have written Vernon to ask...will post here if/when I get a response.
I suspect there are several other computers out there in basements or storage rooms but we are unable to locate any. Even the Computer History Museum seems to have only a brochure about this computer.
OUR DEFINITIONS OF RARITY
One of a Kind: Only known existing item.
Exceedingly Rare: Only 2 to 10 known to exist.
Very Rare: Only 11 to 25 are known to exist.
Rare: Only 26 to 50 are known to exist.
Difficult: Difficult to find.
Available:Can be commonly be purchased.
Unknown: We cannot make a determination.
(For comparison: Many people consider the Apple-1 computer to be rare. As of 2025 there are 92 confirmed and probable Apple-1 computers.)
We are still building. This feature will be ready by the end of December 2025.
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