Netflix’s show The Queen’s Gambit has reignited interest in the game and fueled demand for chess sets. Just for fun, this 10-part series exhumes chess-themed advertising from the same era (mid-1950s through 1960s).

A 1956 ad from Consolidated Electrodynamics Corp. (manufacturer of equipment for measurement, analysis, process control, data processing, and high-vacuum technology) suggests that

One badly played pawn can lose a chess game …. one incorrectly designed part affects an entire plane. Thus, aircraft designers take no chances; they exhaustively check every component, every structure. On a test wing, for example, stresses are measured over and over at up to 500 different points under constantly increasing loads. Reducing the mountains of data from such a test to usable form, ready for engineering study, normally takes weeks of calculation. A Consolidated Data Processing System, however, reduces those weeks to minutes…converts raw measurements to finished data quickly, precisely, automatically. (One aircraft company completed in just six weeks tests expected to take six months!)

The many, varied techniques and instruments offered by CEC and its affiliates can help your own business move fast, but surely. They can help speed everything from research to financial management and, at the same time, banish the element of chance from your business operations. The story is told in Brochure 41, “Your Next Move for Profit and Progress.”