General Instrument

Moses Shapiro, father of former Monsanto head Robert B. Shapiro, was chairman from 1969 to 1975. Frank G. Hickey was chief executive officer from 1975 to 1990, and Donald Rumsfeld from 1990 to 1993.

Shapiro era

The company initially formed in New York City in 1923 as an electronics manufacturer.

In the 1950s, the company president Moses Shapiro began buying a variety of electronics companies, mostly from the New York area. An early purchase was F. W. Sickles Company, a radio manufacturer, which was fully merged in 1951. In April 1957 they added Radio Receptor Company, in 1959 Harris Transducer, and among their more notable purchases, closed General Transistor in 1960. Most of these were left to operate as wholly owned but independent divisions. The buying continued through the 1960s, added Signalite in 1966 and Universal Controls and American Totalisator in 1967. A more major purchase was Jerrold Electronics in December 1967, which became the company's consumer-facing brand for television-related products, mostly through their cable television products.

1970 saw a series of layoffs and downsizing as the poorly performing parts of the conglomerate began to drag down profits. As part of this, the company's interest in several cable television stations were sold off, mostly through their Jerrold division. As soon as the company's financials improved, the buying spree started anew, buying another five companies by 1975. This had turned them into a $500-million-a-year company, but left them deeply in debt.

Hickey era

Shapiro retired in 1975 and was replaced by Frank Hickey, who focused the company on its two most profitable markets, cable television and gaming. The gaming market was primarily through their purchase of American Totalisator, who ran racetrack systems. GI expanded this into off-track betting and by 1979 they supplied 90% of all the off-track systems in North America.

By 1980, Hickey had managed to sell off most of the poorly-performing divisions and company debt had been reduced from 100% of assets to 20%. The success with American Totalisator began to wane as other companies, notably Control Data and Datatrol, began to push down profits. But any losses in this market were overshadowed by the massive expansion of cable television, which quickly took over from the betting systems as the company's primary profit center. In October 1982 they won a $100 million contract to supply over 300 cable TV stations with head end systems.

Through the mid-1980s the company suffered a series of reversals. Looking for new markets, in 1986 they bought M/A-COM's cable division. M/A-COM had earlier purchased VideoCipher, who had developed the industry-standard system for scrambling and decoding satellite television signals, VideoCipher II. This product took some time to start to sell, but by 1987 they were seeing demand outstrip supply. By the end of the year they had total sales of $1.16 billion. This success was short-lived, and by 1990 they were once again operating at a loss.

Rumsfeld era

In August 1990, the company was purchased in a friendly leveraged buyout of $1.6 billion by the FLGI Holding. In October 1990, they announced that Hickey would be replaced by Donald Rumsfeld. He sold off several divisions to cut overhead. The company then began investing heavily in the emerging high definition television (HDTV) market. To continue operations they laid off large numbers of staff, mostly at the headquarters. In 1992 they demonstrated their HDTV system and won a contract for 100,000 compressors. This led Rumsfeld to launch an initial public offering in 1993, after which he left the company in August.

General Instrument produced receivers for old C and Ku band satellites. They also produced Videocipher units as well as digital equipment. 4DTV was a system for picking up free and encrypted analog and digital satellite subscription channels. It also included an interactive guide. The product line included:

2700 Series: on screen displays, C/Ku switching, digital sound, satellite memory increases with the model number.

2600 Series: similar to 2400 except with on-screen displays.

2400/2500 Series: There were no on-screen displays: everything was controlled from the remote and front panel. Two alphanumeric displays indicated the current satellite and transponder. A GI 2000PS was needed to use a dish motor. Digital Stereo Audio was available on VideoCipher channels, C/Ku compatible. The 2400 was re-branded in the early 1990s by Rural Cable and sold with a fixed C band dish pointed at Galaxy 5.