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Founded in October 1951 by six Georgia Tech Research Institute researchers: James E. Boyd (future station director), Charles Griffin, Robert E. Honer (MSEE), Gerald Rosselot (station director), Lamar Whittle and Vernon Widerquist who each invested $100. In late 1952 Glen P. Robinson became the seventh member. Scientific Atlanta was started to produce technology developed at the research station. After the fledgling company's first contract resulted in a $4, 000 loss, Robinson bought out all but one of the original investors, and paid them each back their original $100.

Glen P. Robinson served as CEO of Scientific Atlanta for 20 years, and chairman of the board for an additional eight years, until he retired from the company in 1979. Scientific Atlanta grew dramatically; it earned $3.1 million in revenue in 1962 and approximately $200 million when Robinson left. Sidney Topol served as its president from 1971–83, CEO from 1975–87, and chairman of the board from 1978-90. During his tenure, the company grew in sales to more than $600 million. During the 1970s the company developed the concept of cable/satellite connection, which, in working with HBO and transportable earth stations developed by TelePrompTer Corporation and manufactured by Scientific Atlanta, established satellite-delivered television for the cable industry.

During the 1960s Scientific-Atlanta earned a place in the space and defense industries as a manufacturer of electronic testing equipment for antennae. By the end of that decade the company had added instruments for testing telephones and acoustic devices with defense applications. As a military contractor, the company distinguished itself by manufacturing unique electronic instruments for the federal government. According to Business Week, Scientific-Atlanta was a company "fascinated with communications esoterica."

Scientific-Atlanta applied its energy to opportunities in new fields with large growth potential and few barriers to entry. The company sought out products that were either low-cost and high volume or had a very high price tag. "You've either got to make 10, 000 of something worth $100 to $200, or several of something worth $500, 000 or $10 million, " Topol told the New York Times. The company planned to make the low-cost, high volume end of this equation profitable through aggressive research and development and a strong marketing effort. In its annual report, as reprinted in David C. Rickert's Harvard Business School case study of Scientific-Atlanta, the company stated: "Scientific-Atlanta operates under a disciplined business plan that concentrates on design, manufacture, and sale of standard technical products for the communications and instrumentation markets." More specifically, Topol recounted in Dun's Review, as restated by Rickert, "I asked what products we needed for growing markets, not what markets we should go after because we had a product."

The answer to that question was telecommunications products, primarily the satellite earth station, a large mobile dish used to receive signals transmitted from communications satellites orbiting the earth. In 1973 the company displayed a portable satellite earth station at a communications trade show in California. It planned to sell the portable stations to companies in the relatively new and rapidly growing cable television field so they could transmit their programming to a large number of stations in different areas. The stations, in turn, would send the programming to consumers' homes over their cable networks. At the time, however, observers told Scientific-Atlanta executives that satellite transmission of cable television programming would take place only in the distant future.