Mr. Dipl.-Ing Max Gürth is a man of many talents and abilities. He was a colleague of Mr. Georg Greger (the inventor of the Lectron System) from 1968 to about 1972.
Mr. Gürth was born in 1943-JAN-05 in Garz, AUSTRIA. He studied High-Frequency electronics in Graz before moving to Munich in 1965. He worked in Siemens’ Development Center for Communication. He became a pensioner in 2002 and devotes the majority of his time to music and choirs.
On December 11th, 2015, I had the honor to meet with Mr. Gürth along with my research colleague Günther Stabe. Mr. Stabe had made the initial contact with Mr. Gürth telephonically and he very graciously agreed to meet us for lunch in Munich. We enjoyed a typical Bavarian lunch together in a restaurant/pub. From left to right – Mr. Gürth, Mr. Stabe, and Michael Peters.
Mr. Gürth first became involved with the Lectron System in 1968 when he read a notice published by Braun AG in the newspaper Sendlinger Bote seeking graduate engineers to develop Lectron System modules, and experimental/instructional systems. He replied to the notice and was granted an interview to meet Mr. Georg Greger, the inventor of the Lectron System platform, at Mr. Greger’s office at Deutsche Lectron which was located at 73 Albert Rosshaupter Strasse in Munich. As a specialist and pioneer in designing digital circuits,
Mr. Gürth’s first formal project was to help Mr. Greger revise the Ausbausystem 3 and System 300 models that had been originally designed and the manual written by Mr. Joachim Schubert. Mr. Gürth was hired to redesign the ‘flip flop’ circuit design because the ‘flop’ would not work. He also made some proposals to resolve this and other various problems and these were incorporated so that the Ausbausystem 3 would be a fully working model.
In 1969 Mr. Gürth continued working with Mr. Greger to develop extensions to Mr. Schubert’s documents, digital technology circuits using TTL chips, power electronic circuits, and automation control technology circuits. All of these undertakings were pursued and implemented in pattern blocks and concepts.
An avid circuit designer, Mr. Gürth created at least two hundred distinct circuits with many functional devices as an outcome. A few of these are shown below in the carousel.
Several of my favorites are the Oscilloscope, Geiger Counter and a functioning 8 bit memory register!
Although never formally credited in the Lectron System manuals, Mr. Gürth was also an engineering consultant on behalf of Mr. Manfred Walter (Braun Lectron System division manager and later owner of Lectron, GmbH) to Mr. Edzard Timmer (the designer of the Kybernetic models), Mr. Hartmut Birett, (the designer of the Funktionsmodelle model) and Mr. Schubert to help design and optimize Lectron System circuits used in their models relating to digital electronics techniques.
Mr. Gürth was also on the original author roster for Lectron, GmbH as shown on the first line of the document on the left from 1973-APR-26. The complete document can be viewed as a PDF through this link on my Google Drive. English translation included on page 3 of the PDF.
Mr. Gürth’s formal association with Deutsche Lectron and Mr. Greger ended in 1973
The 2 photographs below shows Mr. Gürth’s amazing Lectron System portable demonstration laboratory. Many prototype circuits were developed and shown at various schools to show the versatility of the Lectron System platform.
For a more portable solution to support doing small group demonstrations, Mr. Gürth devised a smaller case. This case was used especially for making presentations to Mr. Greger. Mr. Gürth took great pleasure in giving Mr. Stabe and myself a demonstration of how the case could be used to showcase a new circuit.
I was also very thrilled to imagine the meeting of Mr. Greger and Mr. Gürth using this very demonstration case to test and review proposed Lectron System circuits.
The reader can only begin to imagine my surprise and elation when Mr. Gürth, in an act of incredible generosity, gave me the case to have for the Lectron.Info museum! In fact, I was given many other Lectron System related items that are truly unique. I indebted to Mr. Gürth for his entrusting this history to my care.
As the end of our visit concluded on this incredible day, I presented Mr. Gürth with the 50th anniversary poster and blue shirt.
As briefly touched on earlier in this page, Mr. Gürth is very passionate about choir music and serves as the Vice-President of the “ChorVerband-Bayern e.V.“, and sits on the executive board of and serves as the choir director for the “Siemens Mitarbeiter Chor München e.V.” which is comprised of former Siemens‘ employees. He also plays Piano, Keyboard, Organ and Guitar and writes special arrangements for his choirs.