ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) -- Edward Blanton Kimbell, an electronics maven who played a major role in guiding The Associated Press into the computer age beginning half a century ago, has died. He was 93.

Kimbell, who had Parkinson's disease, died Oct. 22 at a nursing home in Rochester and was buried after a funeral mass Wednesday, according to the Fowler Funeral Home in Brockport. He is survived by his wife of 71 years, Margaret, and their daughter, Margot.

Kimbell supervised the creation in 1963 of the AP's first computer center, which initially replaced the tedious tasks of compiling stock exchange listings with pencil and paper and relaying them via Teletype. By the early 1970s, computers at the news cooperative were being used to transmit stories.