doiSerbia

Building computers in Serbia: The first half of the digital century

Protić Jelica (School of Electrical Engineering, Belgrade)
Ristanović Dejan (PC Press, Belgrade)

In this paper, we describe the early development of CER-10, the first digital computer built in Serbia, honor its inventors, and follow the professional path of its chief designers, prof. Rajko Tomovic and prof. Tihomir Aleksic, who became the first university professor of computer engineering in Serbia. We also give a short overview of CER family of computers that were developed after the CER-10 till midseventies. In the early eighties, computer revolution continued with personal computers, so we show the early attempts to produce this kind of computers in Serbia, from "build it yourself" campaigns to the industrial production, and we analyze implications of these attempts to the development of user community and evolution to the information society.

Keywords: history of computing, CER family, personal computers, computer industry