MECIPT-2

The MECIPT-2 is a second-generation computer, with transistors and ferrite cores, completed in 1963 at the Timișoara Polytechnic Institute as the successor of the MECIPT-1; it was the first computer used for computer-aided design in the research centres of Timișoara and Bucharest [1]. It was a binary parallel machine with wired fixed-point and programmed floating-point arithmetic and a 1 MHz clock; its main memory, at first a metal drum of 4,096 addresses, was later replaced by a ferrite core memory, and its speed rose to 10,000 operations a second [1]. The Banat design institute (DSAPCB) used it for topometry, thermal and water engineering, construction, algebra and vector geometry [1]. Both MECIPT computers were built at the MECIPT research centre of the Timișoara Polytechnic Institute, set up in the 1960s; the MECIPT computers also spurred the development of electronics, especially digital circuits, and of measurement and automation teams in Timișoara [1].