The first dive computers.

This page is a history of devices and the research behind them. It does not explain how decompression works or how any computer should be used; that is taught in training. Today's computers are described on dive computers.

The research the computers drew on

A 1909 engineering handbook, seen as a search summary, credits the paper "Prevention of Compressed Air Illness" by Boycott, Damant and Haldane, published in the Journal of Hygiene in June 1908. Wikipedia says those 1908 tables were produced for the British Admiralty from experiments on goats and other animals. How long the Royal Navy kept tables based on that work is given two ways: Wikipedia says until 1955, while Divermag, seen as a search summary, says into the late 1950s, with revisions.

A search summary of Wikipedia's article on Albert Buhlmann says his research, begun in 1959, was published in 1983 in the German book "Dekompression - Dekompressionskrankheit", with an English edition in 1984, and that the name of his ZH-L16 model stands for Zurich, limits and 16 compartments. Some of the computers below are described by their sources as using Haldane-style or Buhlmann-based models.

Analogue devices, 1950s to 1970s

DIVE Magazine's history of the dive computer (Marion Kutter, 6 June 2014) says a 1951 meeting at Scripps Institution of Oceanography put monitoring of nitrogen loading at the top of its list of improvements needed in scuba, and that Scripps researchers Groves and Monk published a paper in 1953 defining what a decompression device would have to do.

• Foxboro Decomputer Mark I. DIVE Magazine says Foxboro released it in 1955 and calls it the first analogue dive computer. Wikipedia says the US Navy Experimental Diving Unit evaluated it in 1957 and found it unsuccessful.
• The SOS decompression meter. Wikipedia says De Sanctis and Alinari built the first recreational mechanical decompression meter, nicknamed the "Bendomatic", in 1959. DIVE Magazine dates the SOS Poseidon 5 to 1963 and says the US Navy advised against its recreational use.
• TRACOR. DIVE Magazine says the TRACOR of 1963 was the first electric analogue device.
• DCIEM MARK V S. DIVE Magazine says this 1960s device was sold to military and industrial users but not to the public.
• Stubbs and Kidd. Wikipedia says they applied their decompression model to a pneumatic analogue computer in 1965.
• XDC series. DIVE Magazine says the XDC-1 of 1979 was a desktop laboratory unit, and that about 700 XDC-2 and XDC-3 (CyberDiver) units were sold between 1979 and 1982. It calls them the first digital portable computers; that is the magazine's claim, and we could not confirm it elsewhere.

1983: the Orca EDGE and the Hans Hass DecoBrain

Two devices dated to 1983 are each called a first, in different terms, and the sources describe them differently.

Orca EDGE

Shearwater's blog article "On The Edge", by Michael Menduno (13 January 2017), says Orca Industries was founded in 1982 by Craig Barshinger and Jim Fulton and launched its Electronic Dive Guide, the EDGE, in January 1983. The article says the EDGE showed theoretical tissue loading as a graphic in real time and introduced multi-level diving, and calls it the first commercially viable microprocessor-based dive computer. That article appears on a dive computer maker's site, so its "first" is a claim. It quotes Orca's Richard Nordstrom as saying the EDGE's algorithms were Haldanian, like the Navy tables, and says Karl Huggins implemented limits based on Doppler research published by Spencer and by Bassett and Pulmonis. EIT Inc bought Orca in 1991 and left the diving market in 1999, according to the same article.

DIVE Magazine says the EDGE was based on US Navy tables, displayed a decompression ceiling rather than a full plan, and was made at a rate of about one unit a day. Most sources date it to 1983, but Wikipedia's history article says it was produced in 1984.

Hans Hass DecoBrain

• Wikipedia says the Hans Hass DecoBrain, made by Divetronic AG of Switzerland, appeared in 1983, and calls it the first digital electronic dive computer.
• Shearwater's article also dates it to 1983, but describes it as a device that looked values up in tables.
• DIVE Magazine dates it to 1984 and calls it the first dive computer to succeed in Europe.

Hans Hass's earlier career as a diver and filmmaker is on Hans and Lotte Hass.

Other "first" claims

DIVE Magazine also calls Dacor's Microbrain the first industrial-scale dive computer and the first to use a silicon chip, but gives no date; we could not confirm or date it.

The late 1980s

Suunto's own heritage page says its SME-ML computer came out in 1987; DIVE Magazine says 1986. Suunto also calls its SK-4 of 1965 the world's first diving compass, its 1997 Spyder the first watch-sized dive computer and its 2004 D9 the first wrist-sized all-in-one dive computer. Those are the manufacturer's claims.

DIVE Magazine says Uwatec's Aladin of 1987 swept aside its rivals. Which model that was is unclear: one search summary names the Aladin Pro and says it used algorithms based on Albert Buhlmann's work, while another names the Aladin Sport. We could not confirm the model name.

The 1988 AAUS workshop

A search summary of the Smithsonian repository record says the AAUS Dive Computer Workshop was held on 26 to 28 September 1988 at the USC Catalina Marine Science Center, and that the proceedings, edited by Michael A. Lang and R. W. Hamilton, were published in 1989 as USC Sea Grant report USCSG-TR-01-89. Shearwater's article says the workshop produced 13 recommendations on dive computer use. Wikipedia says it ended a period of general mistrust of dive computers.