COMPUTERS IN EUROPE
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
International symposium on the contribution
of Europeans to the evolution
and the achievements of computer technology
Dedicated to:
Computer Pioneers of European countries,
80 anniversary of National Academy of Science of Ukraine,
75 anniversary of Academician V.Glushkov birth,
50 years of computer science and technology in Ukraine
Kyiv
October 5-9, 1998
advance
announcement
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Content of Proceedings
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INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
CONTACTS
General information
At the end of the 20-th century we have truly embarked
on the information age led by the developments over the past 60 or so years
of computer and communications technology. It is an appropriate time to
meet, discuss and publish full and objective material about the European
contribution to the history of information technology and its usage and
to speculate on what impact it might have on our future.
The first computers were used primarily for military
purposes - breaking enemy codes, computing trajectories of missiles, calculations
essential for making nuclear bombs etc - and hence the secrecy of their
applications first in the second world war, and later in the years of the
"cold war" and the "iron curtain" between East and West, resulted in blank
spaces in the documented history of computing.
Now all this is in the past and we can realistically
summarize and evaluate the substantial contribution of all European countries
to computer and communications technology.
Some of the key events leading us to the information age were:
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1790 - 1800 De Prony (France) organized the preparation of
the "Tables du Cadastre"
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1822 - 1846 Charles Babbage (England) proposed the automation
of table making first with his Difference Engine and then with his ideas
for an all purpose Analytical Engine - the first notion of a digital computer
working under program control
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1834 - 1852 Georg and Edvard Scheutz (Sweden) built first
working Difference Engine for table making
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1938 - 1941 Konrad Zuse (Germany) created the first working
program controlled computer, based on electro-mechanical relays
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1940 - 1943 Alan Turing (England) designed, first a mechanical,
and (1943), the electronic "Colossus" code breaking computer
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1944 - 1945 John von Neumann (Hungarian born and educated,
but working in USA) developed notion of the stored program computer
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1947 - 1949 Frederic Williams (England, Manchester University)
and Maurice Wilkes (England, Cambridge University) independently designed,
built and demonstrated a stored program computer
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1948 - 1951 Sergei Lebedev (Ukraine, Kyiv) created the MESM
— first stored program computer in continental Europe.
-
1949 - 1951 J.Lyons (England) a food processing company,
designed and brought into productive use the world's first business computer,
using the design of the Cambridge University Computer EDSAC (Wilkes) as
a basis.
In practice little is known of the importance of Europe to the
evolution of the technology. Hence it was thought timely to celebrate the
European contribution with a symposium, to be held in Kyiv, the city which
saw the first productive electronic stored program computer in continental
Europe to see service. The outcome is this invitation to participate in
the All Europe Symposium and Exhibition dedicated to the European pioneers
of the information age.
OBJECTIVES
THEMES
THE WORKING LANGUAGES OF SYMPOSIUM
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
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