It was conceived by Richard L. Snyder, Jr., Jan A. Rajchman, Paul Rudnick and the digital computer group at the laboratories of the Radio Corporation of America under the direction of Vladimir Zworykin.
This function was key to the RCA attempt to produce a non-analog computer based fire-control system for use in artillery aiming during WWII.
The Additron Tube design by Josef Kates gated electron beams of a fixed trajectory with several control grids which either passed or blocked a current.
The Computron design was an early attempt to produce not only a vacuum tube integrated circuit for both size and reliability (lifetime) issues, but to minimize external electrical connections between active elements.
But the project was begun to increase the accuracy of artillery in battle, not to advance the state of the embryonic electronic computer.
Its fate was well described in a letter to Dr. Paul E. Klopsteg, Head of NDRC Division 17, dated 6 February 1943 which concludes: ...As I said above, our entire Division is exceedingly reluctant to see a development which is scientifically so beautiful and so promising dropped at this point, though cold reason tells us that we cannot justify the expenditure of additional Government funds on the basis of Fire Control at this time.