The Cora was a digital

fire-control system A fire-control system (FCS) is a number of components working together, usually a gun data computer, a Director (military), director, and radar, which is designed to assist a ranged weapon system to target, track, and hit a target. It performs ...

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri *Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internati ...

company Contraves.

Development

Peter Tóth started the design of ''Cora-1'' in 1957. The system was intended for

anti-aircraft Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...

fire direction with the Swiss Army.Un ordinateur historique retrouvé dans les caves de l’EPFL
, ''24 Heures'' However, ''Cora-1'' turned out to be too slow and too bulky for this application. It was programmed for other applications by programmers including

Heinz Lienhard Heinz Lienhard (18 June 1937 – 12 May 2020) was a Swiss electrical engineer and an inventor.École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern Franc ...

(EPFL) for

cartography Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an ...

, and was put on display during

Expo 64 The Swiss national exposition of 1964 (French: ''Exposition nationale suisse de 1964''), usually shortened to Expo 64, was a world's fair held in Lausanne, more specifically in Vidy and the neighbouring Vallée de la Jeunesse, between 30 April and ...

. The unit was rediscovered in storage in 2011, and is now on display at the

Musée Bolo The Musée Bolo or Swiss Museum of Computer Science, Digital Culture and Video Games is a private museum dedicated to the digital revolution. Its exhibition space is located on the site of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in ...

, in the Computer Science department of the EPFL. ''Cora-1''-was one of the first fully transistorized digital computers built in Switzerland according to the

Von Neumann architecture The von Neumann architecture — also known as the von Neumann model or Princeton architecture — is a computer architecture based on a 1945 description by John von Neumann, and by others, in the '' First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC''. Th ...

. An improved version of this computer was developed subsequently by a team led by Swiss engineer Peter Blum. ''Cora-2'' was successfully used for anti-aircraft fire direction being compact enough to fit into the corresponding mobile control unit. The Musée Bolo met with Peter Tóth and released several videos around his work on the ''Cora''.

References

External links

{{Commons category, Contraves Cora
Discovery of Two Historical Computers in Switzerland: Zuse Machine M9 and Contraves Cora and Discovery of Unknown Documents on the Early History of Computing at the ETH Archives
''Making the History of Computing Relevant '', Springer 2013

IT Magazine 2012/01 Military computers Artillery components Artillery operation Applications of control engineering Ballistics Military electronics Computer-related introductions in 1978