computer science

History of computing in Poland

History of computing in Poland is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand History of computing in Poland rather than just read about it. In short: The history of Polish computing (informatics) began during the Second World War with breaking the Enigma machine code by Polish mathematicians. After World War II, work on Polish computers began.

Key takeaways

History of computing in Poland belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect History of computing in Poland to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of History of computing in Poland from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The history of Polish computing (informatics) began during the Second World War with breaking the Enigma machine code by Polish mathematicians. After World War II, work on Polish computers began. Poles made a significant contribution to both the theory and technique of world computing. In the State Institute of Mathematics, established in 1948 (from 1952 at the Polish Academy of Sciences), it was decided to start prospective work on the construction of at least one machine comparable to the American ENIAC. For this purpose, the Mathematical Apparatus Group of this Institute (pol. Grupa Aparatów Matematycznych, GAM) was established. The first engineering employee of GAM was Leon Łukaszewicz, and shortly after he was joined by his fellow students, Romuald Marczyński and Krystyn Bochenek. Logician and statistician Henryk Greniewski became the head of GAM. There were no resources to build such a computer - neither technical facilities, nor electronic equipment, nor experience. The only chance was given by the enthusiasm and alleged talent of a few newly promoted engineers.

Polish computer hardware designs in 1958-1986

Odra Some of the earliest computers created in Poland were the first Odra computers. They were manufactured at the Elwro manufacturing plant in Wrocław, (the brand name comes from the Odra River that flows through the city of Wrocław) and exported to other communist countries. The production started in 1959–1960. The last series of Odra computers—the Odra 1300—consisted of three models: the Odra 1304, 1305, and the 1325. The hardware was developed by Polish teams to run the software for the above machines provided by the British company ICL. The Odra 1300 models were designed to be ICL 1900 compatible.

K-202 K-202 was 16-bit minicomputer built by Jacek Karpiński in 1971. It was faster and cheaper than most of the world's production at this time, and more advanced than IBM PC released decade later, but the mass production was never started because of political reasons and dependence on western parts; it was not compatible with the ES EVM standard.

Meritum Produced by Mera-Elzab, Meritum I and II models were created in 1983 and 1985 respectively. Based on U880DA CPU (Zilog Z80 clone), with 16 and 48KB RAM, were based on the TRS-80 computer. They were intended primarily for scientific, engineering and office applications.

Elwro Junior Elwro 800 Junior (1986) and Elwro 804 Junior PC (1990) were ZX Spectrum clones intended for schools, and for home use respectively. The 804 model had a 3.5" disk drive built in; the drive was available as an accessory for 800 (the alternative mass storage being a tape recorder). The computers used the Z80A CPU, 64KB RAM and 24KB ROM. The ROM contained either CP/J (a variant of CP/M) operating system, or Spectrum-compatible BASIC.

Cobra 1 The Cobra 1 was a 8-bit home and industrial microcomputer based on the Zilog Z80A processor, intended to be assembled by the end user. It was not a clone of an existing computer. The diagram and description of the computer were published in a series of articles in the Polish magazine Audio Video between 1984 and 1986.

Mazovia Mazovia was a Polish clone of IBM PC/XT.

Polish computer scientists Grzegorz Rozenberg - researcher in fields of natural computing, formal language and automata theory, graph transformations, and concurrent systems. He is referred to as the guru of natural computing. Janusz Brzozowski - known for his contributions to mathematical logic, circuit theory, and automata theory, focused on regular expressions and on syntactic semigroups of formal languages. Andrew Targowski - contributed to the areas of enterprise computing, societal computing, information technology impact upon civilization, information theory, wisdom theory, and civilization theory. Jacek Karpiński - main creator of K-202, contributed to areas of machine learning algorithms, techniques for character and image recognition. Jan Węglarz - one of creators of Elwro 800 Junior, currently specializing in operations research. Zenon Kulpa - known for his work on diagrammatic representation and diagrammatic reasoning.

The largest Polish IT companies CD Projekt Red - is a video game developer, publisher and distributor based in Warsaw. Goodram - the largest Polish manufacturer of RAM, flash drive and SD cards.

Polish Information Processing Society The Polish Information Processing Society (also known as Polish Informatics Society) is the oldest Polish organization that associates professionals from the computing industry. They act for their environment, as well as the social and economic environment. As part of its statutory activities, the Polish Informatics Society speaks on behalf of the surrounding community in the most important issues related to computerization, is consulted in legislative processes, and conducts certification and appraisal activities. They also organize a series of conferences, meetings and thematic workshops aimed at improving competences and integrating IT specialists. They are also working to increase general digital skills in society. They effectively promote Poland by showing the global successes of their computer scientists and unique digital technology products created in Poland.

See also History of computer hardware in Yugoslavia Computer systems in the Soviet Union History of computing in Romania History of computer hardware in Bulgaria

References

External links [1] - Main Movie by Polish Information Processing Society for 70th anniversary of Polish informatics (2019) [2] - Polish school of algorithmics and programming, a video by Polish Information Processing Society (2019)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with History of computing in Poland

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what History of computing in Poland claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to History of computing in Poland before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about History of computing in Poland ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of History of computing in Poland

In research: History of computing in Poland appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses History of computing in Poland in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: History of computing in Poland is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics History of computing, Science and technology in Poland, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for History of computing in Poland outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “History of computing in Poland” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study History of computing in Poland in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what History of computing in Poland means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain History of computing in Poland out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is History of computing in Poland in simple terms?

The history of Polish computing (informatics) began during the Second World War with breaking the Enigma machine code by Polish mathematicians. After World War II, work on Polish computers began.

Why does History of computing in Poland matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study History of computing in Poland?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on History of computing in Poland.