heim Fyrstu tölvurnar
This
section tells the story of how the
University of Iceland came to acquire the first general-purpose
computer in
Iceland.
In
1960 a few Icelandic students had come into
contact with electronic computers during their university studies
abroad. I had
actually started using the EDSAC I computer in Cambridge in England
already in
1950, using machine language. At the instigation of the Icelandic
Mathematical
Society two engineering students in Denmark spent 3 months in 1960
working on
the DASK computer at Regnecentralen, using machine language. One of
them went
on to work on the GIER computer using Algol a couple of years later.
One
student in England had begun to use the Mercury computer in 1960, using
Autocode.
Two students in the United States started work on IBM 650 and 704
computers
around 1960, using machine language and later FORTRAN and MAD (Michigan
Algorithm Decoder). These people, with different computing backgrounds,
were
the human resources available to initiate scientific computing in
Iceland.
Thus,
in the beginning of the 1960's a few
scientists and engineers in Iceland had used computers in their studies
abroad
but no computer was available in Iceland. The possibility of acquiring
a
computer had been looked into, e.g. acquiring a Mercury computer, but
that
possibility was not realistic. An Icelandic engineer visited
Regnecentralen in
Copenhagen in 1959 and its director, Niels Bech, came to Iceland in the
summer
of 1960. He even broached the idea of setting up a branch of
Regnecentralen in
Reykjavík with a GIER computer, but that was not a realistic
idea and the
matter did not go further.
In September 1960 the
representative of IBM in Iceland, Ottó A. Michelsen, wrote to
the Faculty of
Engineering at the University of Iceland, and to the National Research
Council,
offering a 60% Educational Allowance on the purchase or rent of an IBM
1620
Model I computer that had been launched in October 1959. The offer was
not
taken up.
In a
proposal from 1961 for the establishment
of a Science Institute at the University of Iceland a recommendation
was made
to acquire an electronic computer for the institute.
In
1963 an Icelandic electrical engineer spent
several months at Regnecentralen in Denmark studying the GIER computer.
The idea was to obtain components and
assemble a GIER
computer in Iceland. That plan did not materialise.
In October 1963 the IBM representative arranged for an IBM 1620 Model I computer, which was being shipped from Canada to Finland, to make a “stop-over “ in Iceland. Courses in Fortran programming were held with support from IBM in Denmark and people were given the opportunity to use the computer. This aroused great interest, primarily among scientists and engineers. IBM followed that up by again offering the University of Iceland a 60% Educational Allowance on the rent or purchase of an IBM 1620 computer and now the University responded positively.
The Rector of the University entrusted me, the only professor with computer experience, with the task to obtain funds to rent a computer and to set up a computing centre. This involved obtaining financial support from the Government and Parliament and possibly other sources. I discussed this matter with the Minister of Education, dr. Gylfi Þ. Gíslason, who showed an interest but stressed that the running costs of the computing centre be covered, at least partly, by income derived from the use of the computer. I approached the directors of governmental and municipal institutions and private firms and convinced most of them of the potential benefit of the use of the computer. I thus managed to obtain from several institutes “subscriptions” to 1-3 hours of computer time per month. The next step was to write a proposal to the Budget Committee of the Parliament for funds to rent the computer.
As I was writing the proposal the
Minister of Education called me and asked about the purchase price of
the
computer. Although I had been preoccupied with the rental costs I could
give
the Minister an approximate price in Icelandic krónur. About ten
minutes later
he called me again and said that the Icelandic Development Bank had
decided to
donate to the University the purchase price of the computer on the
occasion of
its 10th anniversary! It turned out that the Minister was
actually
at a meeting of the Board of Directors of the bank where the directors
were
discussing how the bank should celebrate the anniversary. An agreement
for the
purchase of an IBM 1620 Model II computer, that had been announced in
December
1962 and was a significant improvement on Model I, was signed in
December 1963
for delivery in December 1964. That is how the University of Iceland
came to
acquire the first general-purpose computer in Iceland.
The University Computing Centre was
set up in December 1964 with an IBM 1620 Model II computer with a
memory of
40,000 binary coded decimals (BCD) and a card read/punch unit. Later
two
magnetic disk drives, each removable disk holding 2 million digits,
were
purchased with funds from the US Atomic Energy Commission and a line
printer
was acquired on loan from IBM. This was the equipment that was used to
introduce scientific computing in Iceland
In the preparation for the setting
up of the computing centre I had the invaluable assistance of Oddur
Bendiktsson
Ph.D. who had just returned from the United States. He later became the
first
professor of computer science at the University. Helgi Sigvaldason
lic.tech.,
who was one of the Icelandic engineers at Regnecentralen in 1960 and
who had
wo0rked on GIER in Copenhagen from 1962 to 1964, came to the Computing
Centre
at the start. Both of them have contributed to this conference. The
third
member of the initial staff was Ragnar Ingimarsson Ph.D.. These three
came from
different computing backgrounds, having used Fortran, Algol and MAD
respectively.
Figure. The IBM 1620-II computer in the University Computing Centre in 1964. On the picture from left: Þórhallur M. Einarsson (IBM), Ragnar Ingimarsson, Helgi Sigvaldason, Oddur Benediktsson, and Magnús Magnússon
