SAPO

Also called SAmočinný POčítač.Designed by doc. Antonín Svoboda.It was manufactured from 1957 by Ústav matematických strojů.

Parts of this topic may be machine translated.

The first Czechoslovak digital computer was the SAPO, which was based on relay technology, as no other suitable components were available in Czechoslovakia at the time. The computer worked until 1961, when it was destroyed by a fire in one relay block. Input and output of information was ensured by punched labels. A magnetic drum unit (constructed by Václav Chlouba) with a capacity of 1024 words served as memory.

Architecture

The computer architecture was binary using floating point, word length was 32 bits and instructions had five addresses. The first two addresses were operand addresses. The third address was for the result and the last two addresses were pointers to the next instruction depending on the sign of the result. The execution speed of all instructions was the same and was approximately 3 operations per second (op/s).

Fault tolerance

Due to the low reliability of approximately 7,000 relays and 400 vacuum tubes, triple modular redundancy was chosen in the design of the computer. The correct result was ensured by a majority vote. This procedure eliminated any single error, assuming the computer was programmed correctly. It was the world's first fault-tolerant computer.

A POEM ABOUT THE DESIGNER OF MATHEMATICAL MACHINERY

Ivo Štuka, At the end of the city, Prague 1958, Mladá fronta

(Poem composed in honor of doc. Antonín Svoboda)

First we went together on a steamer,

you photographed seagulls, smoke and sun,

that cuts the surface like an ax

You have painted water hundreds of times with watercolors

and a cloud over the coast,

in which the Castilian crest of a palm tree stuck out.

You also splashed in the pool and went diving

for colorful glamor below,

as if the heart were like a balloon

filled to bursting, tricolor

and bouncing back and forth.

And I rarely saw you over a pad and pencil,

you have turned into a blacksmith and an anvil in the brain

burned your face as sparks fly

the heart was a penny again

and you carried that weight very nicely

found again

when numbers and formulas were scribbled on paper

and they spoke to you in tricolor at least.

All those incidents are secondary to this poem,

because I saw you again in Prague

amid your pace-counting machines,

with which an avalanche of electric current rolls in the wires,

in the midst of your dream friends,

who shouted over the waves from the block back then,

even if the sea calmed down and became more seductive

than a harem of naked nymphs.

Your machines can count those

elusive waves that pass through matter,

perhaps the shift of the gray rain wagons will also be predicted

in the marshalling yard of the autumn sky,

calculate pensions for deaf grandmothers,

which do not even know the roar of the sea

nor the hum of electric shocks

in the knots of this artificial brain,

calculate the orbits of the satellites

and everything else we can think of

and between them your heart like an inflated light ball

it swings to the beat and cannot be heard in the noise.

However, your machine cannot calculate

why sometimes the heart becomes heavy like a lump of metal,

why are you sad looking at the circling leaf

on the girl's feet, paddling lithely away,

why does your head sometimes fall into your hands

and you would rather push her away

and let it lie, the loathsome carp,

as you climb the ladder of your formulas and formulas,

your machine won't count that.

Only a poem can do that

and that's why I'm writing it to you in tricolor

and I put it in an envelope

and I trust, as always, postmen

circling leaves.

References

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