Before founding IEE, Gumpertz worked as an engineer at and announcer for Santa Barbara's KDB and Berkeley's KRE.

[2] One of IEE's first products to market was an electronic numeric display unit that worked from a rear-projection principle, in which several miniature lightbulbs arranged in a grid pattern shine one at a time through a black-and-white film etched with digits, along with two sets of condenser lenses for evening the lighting—both in a corresponding arrangement to the bulbs.

[6] When a purchase was completed, the card was given to a cashier, who fed it into an electronic reader connected via a modem to Brunswig's central warehouse.

[6] However, Brunswig encountered increasing road traffic in Los Angeles in the early 1960s, as a result of customers moving to the outskirts of the city and shopping at more remote stores.

The time from order to delivery slowed as result of the road traffic, so Brunswig raised non-automated warehouses closer to the outskirts where their customers were starting to shop.

This decentralization reduced the throughput of the central automated warehouse to the point it became a white elephant for Brunswig and had to be shut down in 1963.

Walter H. Buchsbaum of Electronics World called the design ingenious but noted that its complexity rendered user serviceability improbable.

[15] The anode required 2 (or 2.5[13]) kV for operation but only about 30 µA of current; IEE sold the power supplies separately.

[16] IEE was hit hard by downsizing of the defense sector from 1990 to 1991, leading to a reduction of its 400-strong workforce by half by 1995 and a 10-percent pay cut for its remaining employees during the first four years of the downturn.

Starting in 1992, the company eased into the commercial industry, producing video monitors and cash registers displays.

[18] In 2002, the company was in the business of fitting active-matrix LCDs with Clarex DR-IIIC, a light-diffusing acrylic that made the panels suitable for outdoor viewing.

[22] In 2021, the company won a $15.3 million Department of Defense contract for replacing the Passive Attack Displays of the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle.