Politehnica University Timisoara

From MECIPT to ITC and back

 
 
From MECIPT to ITC and back

50th anniversary of the establishment of the ITC

12 October 2018

 

 

 

 

 

50 years ago, a core of engineers, specialized and computer enthusiasts who set up and then worked with MECIPT (the Electronic Computer Machine of the Polytechnic Institute of Timisoara), the first computer in the university environment in Romania, founded the subsidiary Timisoara Institute of Computer Engineering, shortly ITC. On October 12, 2018, the group, including Vasile Baltac, Dan Bedros, or Horia Gligor, returned to Politehnica at the UPT Conference Center Auditorium to celebrate the semicentenary of the ITC branch of Timisoara.

At the meeting, which started with a moment of silence in memory of those who are no longer alive, there were discussions about the first computer that was entirely conceived in our university - the Electronic Computer Machine of the Polytechnic Institute of Timisoara (MECIPT) - between 1959 and 1961, about the "birth" of the ITC branch of Timisoara, but especially about the importance of every man involved in these projects from scratch in the 1960s, at a time when the cold war made impossible any communication with the capitalist West for the Eastern countries, under the influence of communist Russia. Here's why they had to develop their own technologies from scratch, through in-depth research. Only around 30 countries around the world were doing research in IT, and among six Communist countries. Romania is one of the positive results. In 1989 ITC Timisoara had a team of 800 employees, of whom 500 worked at the memory factory and 300 created software.

The entire ITC field in our country is currently influenced by former ITC Timisoara employees, who are now in charge of some of the most important ITC companies, both with Romanian capital (some have their own companies) and with foreign capital.

Also on the occasion of the anniversary, the book "An Institute for History" - dedicated to the semicentenary of the Institute for Computer Engineering - was launched by a team of authors, coordinated by Professor Vasile Baltac, the first ITC Director.

The 50-year-old establishment of the Institute for Computing Technology undoubtedly had a profound impact on the field of electronic computers and society as a whole. The informational revolution that had recently become the fourth industrial revolution would have included Romania much slower and harder without the strong research force that was ITC.

Romania has had traditions in research and development of first and second generation electronic computers. The first CIFA-1 computer was made at IFA in 1957 by Victor Toma. It was just 11 years after ENIAC in the US and 5 years after USSR BESM-1. They followed with MECIPT-1 at the Polytechnic Institute of Timisoara in 1961. The world has evolved rapidly and computer production has passed to the industrial phase with powerful companies producing large computers for scientific calculations, management, automation.

Romania has also quickly realized that computers are needed in the economy and, at the initiative of some professors headed by Mihai Drăgănescu, the Government adopted in 1967 a "Program for endowing the national economy with modern computing and automation equipment of data processing ". The program provided for the creation of a specialized institute, specialized factories, a service enterprise, an IT institute, then known as ICI, a network of territorial computing centers, departmental centers, etc. The Decree setting up the ITC was issued in 1967, but the institute was actually created 50 years ago in 1968.

Since 1970, it has been decided to create a FELIX family of computers with smaller and larger models than C-256 (C-32 and C-512/1024), an example for many other institutes involved in processing licenses. At the ITC proposal, a microproduction section of ferrite memories is created that produces the FELIX memory module. The module and the manufacturing technology were designed by own research at the Timisoara branch. After a few years, the section was transformed into the FMECTC Electronic Memory Factory, after 1990 becoming ALCATEL Romania via privatization. The institute's laboratories have developed data entry and validation systems, invoiced and accounted machines and other equipment required by the increasing number of beneficiaries. As early as 1972 a teleprocessing system with ASR33 terminals connected by telephone lines was developed, a system proved to TIB in the national premiere.

 
De la MECIPT la ITC și înapoi
 
 
 
 
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