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Varga (later Tarjan, too) visited his former Soviet research institution: the Institute
of Energetics of Moscow, one of the first institutions constructing the first Soviet
“Neumann concept computers”. These computers were the Soviet clones of the
American IAS computer.
2 The M-3 Computer
During his visit, they developed their first small-medium size computer, the
M-3, they started to construct it, too. They offered Varga to give the constructional
design of the M-3 computer to MTA KKCs, then we could construct the computer
in Budapest.
It is necessary to know that there was an agreement between the Socialist coun-
tries, called the “Sofia concept “, because this agreement was born in Sofia. The
“Sofia concept” was: the members of the COMECON countries will give - free of
charge - their scientific results to the other socialist countries. The M-3 was a scien-
tific result, therefore we received it free!
Varga - and later Tarjan - accepted this opportunity, the documentation of the
computer arrived soon - mid 1957 - if I remember well, in two large boxes to
Budapest.
We knew that the similar M-3 design was given to the Cybernetical Research Insti-
tution of Estonia and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A little bit later the first M-3
computer was transported from Moscow to Belorussia, Minszk, to the Ordzsonokidze
Computer Factory, where they manufactured it in a serial production. In China, they
also constructed several M-3 computers, it was the basis of the first Chinese computer
production. The design of the M-3 computer was given to Soviet Armenia, too, using
this support they constructed their first Armenian computer, the RAZDAN.
The first M-3 computers (in Estonia, China, Hungary and in the Soviet Union)
were constructed from the same source, but they were different, because we - in four
countries - changed a “little bit” the original designs, and - additionally - we had no
connections between the other “M-3” countries. The result was: the M-3 computers -
the Soviet, the Estonian, the Chinese and the Hungarian - were not compatible with
each other, because we did not harmonise our developments. We could not exchange
any software between us, but - during this time - we believed, it was not necessary
for anybody else. Everybody wrote their own programs and - generally - did not use
the programs of his colleagues, absolutely the institutions used their programs in their
countries and not outside of the countries. We did not recognise the importance of the
compatibility and the exchange of the software.
Varga reorganised the whole technical department, he replaced Tarján, as the head
of our scientific research and appointed
Balint Dömölki
, as the head of the computer
development department. I became his deputy, as the responsible head of the techni-
cal (electronic) development.
During the construction of the computer my colleagues suggested (me, too) a lot of
new solutions, such as: we changed some circuits in the arithmetic unit, we installed
some new instructions of the instruction set, we developed a new magnetic drum
controller for four drums, we replaced the old input/output devices (Siemens 100
teletype) to fast tape-reader and tape punch equipments etc.
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