Rediscovering the very first Italian digital computer

Cignoni, Giovanni A.; Gadducci, Fabio

doi:10.1109/histelcon.2012.6487563

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Being the procedures (the actual ones, not the babble you see in the movie) quite complicated and error prone, it was a real endeavour for visitors and students to successfully complete a whole cycle of set-up, encode and decode. The simulator of the Macchina Ridotta (MR), is one of the most relevant results of the HMR project [11]. The MR was dismantled in late 1958 to reuse its electronic components in a second computer: no relics of the very first Italian computer survived.…”

Section: Challenges On Old Machinesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Games, from Engaging to Understanding: A Perspective from a Museum of Computing Machinery

Cignoni¹,

Cappellini²,

Mongelli³

2015

Entertainment Computing - ICEC 2015

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Section: Challenges On Old Machinesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Games, from Engaging to Understanding: A Perspective from a Museum of Computing Machinery

Cignoni¹,

Cappellini²,

Mongelli³

2015

Entertainment Computing - ICEC 2015

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“…HMR stands for Hacking the Macchina Ridotta, with the 1957 Macchina Ridotta (Smaller Machine, MR) being the first Italian computer [Cignoni and Gadducci 2012]. The primary goal of the project was to virtually rebuild the MR, as the original was dismantled in early 1959 to reuse its materials in the construction of another computer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Virtual Experience on the Very First Italian Computer

Cignoni

Gadducci

Paci

2015

J. Comput. Cult. Herit.

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Despite their temporal proximity, the technologies of the early computers are far from us. Yet, they are part of the history of science and technology, and they deserve to be studied and popularized. Being machines made to run software programs, they should be exhibited running. Unfortunately, old machines still in working condition are extremely rare. Restoring or rebuilding an old computer is a hard, expensive task: the original components are rare, and the technology is forgotten and sometimes lost. The research needed to re-understand those computers has to adopt experimental archaeology methods: rebuilding old hardware/software requires proceeding by hypotheses and experiments.However, a rebuilt or restored computer is a unique exemplar and a precious specimen: it is not suitable to let people interact with it. A more flexible solution is to use software simulations. First of all, simulation is a valuable tool to carry out the experiments needed to study past technology. Second, the simulators are virtual replicas that let people fully understand the old machines by interacting with them without jeopardizing those precious relics of the past.This article presents the virtual rebuilding of the first computer made in Italy: the Macchina Ridotta (MR) of the University of Pisa. The MR was dismantled after few months of intensive usage to cannibalize the materials for a second computer. As a consequence, the MR disappeared from later chronicles and for many years was ignored by historians. When we attempted to reconstruct the MR history, we found that the survived documentation was far from complete. Simulation proved to be the key tool to support the experimental approach adopted for understanding the MR technology, rebuilding it, and assessing its achievements. The MR simulator is now used at the Museum of Computing Machinery of Pisa as a mean to truly experience a working session on the MR-a typical computer from the 1950s. The exhibit and the workshops, by exploiting the accurately reproduced characteristics of the MR, address popularization of computer science from several perspectives: from technological mechanisms to scientific foundations, passing through the representation of computers in popular culture.

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“…In fact, the MR almost completely disappeared from the history of Italian computer science [5]. It was the in-depth investigation of the recovered MR documentation that made possible to rediscover it and, by rebuilding its technology, to understand its achievements and its relevance.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An overview of the evolution of those machines is out of the scope of our paper. For a recent summary in English of the main events concerning the CEP project, as well as the ELEA series, we refer the reader to [5] and the references therein.…”

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confidence: 99%

Using Old Computers for Teaching Computer Science

Cignoni

Gadducci

2013

Making the History of Computing Relevant

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Research on the history of computing often needs to adopt experimental archaeology methods: the rebuilding of old hardware and software requires us to proceed by hypothesis and experimentation. This is one of the key assets of the HMR project, whose main goal is the study of Italian computers from the Fifties and Sixties. The results obtained by the HMR research are made accessible to the public through exhibitions and workshops held at the Museum of Computing Tools of the University of Pisa. The visitors of the Museum, mainly students from middle and high schools, are introduced to the basic concepts of computer science through fascinating old machines. The paper reviews some of the results of the HMR project and presents how historical computers, either preserved at the Museum or rebuilt by HMR, are shown to the public to teach principles and mechanisms of computer science.

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Rediscovering the very first Italian digital computer

Cited by 8 publications

References 6 publications

Games, from Engaging to Understanding: A Perspective from a Museum of Computing Machinery

Games, from Engaging to Understanding: A Perspective from a Museum of Computing Machinery

A Virtual Experience on the Very First Italian Computer

Using Old Computers for Teaching Computer Science

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