on July 24, 1957 the professor Marcello Conversi, who taught physics at the University of Pisa, wrote a letter to all his colleagues to give the happy announcement: “I am pleased to inform you that the construction of the Reduced Electronic Calculator, according to the detailed project developed last year by the researchers of this center. As I pointed out in my letter of July 31, 1956, this Reduced Machine will be used almost entirely in the complete electronic Calculator (Final Machine) of which it will constitute a large part (about half) “.
Again: “As soon as the testing, currently in progress, is completed, the Reduced Machine can probably also be used for solve calculation problems of not excessive complexity. In accordance with the programmatic lines established at the time, it will also be fundamentally committed for the whole experimentation which must precede the complete definition of the project relating to the Final Machine. I am at your disposal for any further clarification and I will be happy if you would like to honor us with your visit to view the equipment completed in these days “.
It was highly anticipated news. The Pisan Electronic Calculator it was destined to become the father (or mother) of all subsequent computers Italians. The project started in 1954, when the Provinces of Pisa, Livorno and Lucca had allocated 150 million lire to build “an electronic device” that would give prestige to the University of Pisa. The initial idea was an electrosynchrotron, but when Frascati won the order, in Pisa they decided to follow Enrico Fermi’s advice by using an electronic calculator. The project was made possible because Olivetti decided to support him also through the opening of an electronic research laboratory in Barbaricina. The project started in 1955 and was divided into two parts: in the first one the central core of the machine was built; in the second, the CEP would be completed. In fact, the researchers then decided to immediately create a smaller prototype, the Reduced Machine, in fact, which therefore must be considered the first digital electronic calculator built in Italy (the other two, in Milan and Rome, had been purchased in the United Kingdom and the United States). For this reason, 1957 many consider it “the zero year of information technology in Italy”.
The historian of technology speaks of that day Maurizio Gazzarri in the good novel The guys who built the future, in which therefore “romance” on July 24, but gives a good idea of what happened.
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