On July 24, 1972, professors and students from Escola Politécnica da USP were preparing a room in the electrical engineering building for a presentation. They removed desks and a platform and used a rug from the college board to hide the floor: the way it was, it would devalue the photos.
The then governor of São Paulo, Laudo Natel, the rector of USP at the time, Miguel Reale, and Bishop Dom Ernesto de Paula would be there. On that day, they watched the presentation of the first Brazilian computer: the Feio Patinho, which turns 50 next Sunday.
The machine, in a box measuring one meter high by one meter long, had been manufactured over the previous year by undergraduate and graduate students at the university, who worked under the leadership of Professor Antônio Hélio Guerra Vieira.
Without any screen, a panel with lights indicated the flow of information entered into a teletype, equipment similar to a Telex machine that printed the commands. The main memory had 4 kB, capacity almost 1 million times smaller than that of a current entry-level cell phone.
On the day of the celebration, the computer was already on and the loader was loaded. The program was the basic element, corresponding to the startup of a modern computer. With it installed, it was possible to use a programming language closer to human thought, since the machine language is formed only by the numbers 0 and 1 —corresponding to 1 bit, the minimum unit of the computer.
The idea was to insert a perforated tape – the programming language of the time – directly into the teletype with the program that would be presented. But close to the presentation, they unplugged the computer. The output was to dictate the loader command, at 0 and 1, to one of the students, who entered it through the switch panel. “Programmed in the race”, as defined by engineer Antonio Marcos Massola, who was 28 years old at the time of launch and participated in the project.
Finally, the tape of the presentation program was inserted into the Telex-like machine, which printed a sheet with a duck drawn with several X’s. “I am the ugly duckling,” read a sentence below the illustration.
The achievement was the result of a time of effervescence in the university sector, which was beginning to embrace computer engineering.
In 1968, Vieira created the Laboratory of Digital Systems at USP, which would give birth to the computer. In the early 1970s, the electrical engineering course was divided into telecommunications and digital systems. And a year before Patinho Feio, in 1971, college students managed to connect two computers, one in Rio de Janeiro and the other in São Paulo, through a telephone line.
But the main impetus for the endeavor was a course in computer architecture given by the American Glen Langdon, who worked at the computer giant IBM. As a final work, in June 1971, he proposed that the class design a computer. The idea was well received by the then director of the college, Oswaldo Fadigas, who took charge of raising funds.
About 12 graduates focused on the project — the oldest was Professor Hélio, then 42 years old. Along with them, several interns in the 4th or 5th year of the course.
“We had to do everything from scratch”, says USP professor Edith Ranzini, who was 25 years old at the time of the launch. Circuit boards, for example, were made with cardboard and plastic. “Not even science fair projects are done like that today.”
The computer’s housing was produced in the university’s mechanic shop, and the memory, part of which Ranzini was responsible, purchased for a few thousand dollars abroad.
A coincidence ended up giving the project its name. While students were making the machine, the Navy launched a challenge: build a computer for military warships.
“Without ever having made a computer in this country, the Navy later came to the conclusion that it was not going to be possible to make one for the first time and put it on the frigate”, says Ranzini. But the proposal served as a stimulus for projects in Brazil, including one from Unicamp: the White Swan.
A report about the competitor led to a meeting in Professor Hélio’s office. “What shall we call the computer?” he asked. One of those present suggested Ugly Duckling for the machine, until then unnamed.
Finally, the Unicamp computer was not ready and the USP computer was not used for the frigate, but the pioneering spirit of the participants placed the university among those selected for another Navy computer project, alongside PUC-RJ: the G- 10.
The insistence took place in the context of the Military Dictatorship (1964-1985), which had plans to create a robust national industry through market reserve. The policy led to the creation of Cobra Computers, which used the G-10 as the basis for its first launch. The state-owned company founded in 1974 was never able to keep up with the market update.
“We provided an engineering team for Itaú Tec, for Cisco, for all these companies that were starting”, says Ranzini.
On the day of the inauguration of Patinho Feio, the then governor of São Paulo, Laudo Natel, stated that, from that moment on, “the entire Brazilian community” had come to “believe more in Brazil and its future”.
“Today we can already say that we have something to offer in the field of computing”, he continued.
According to Ranzini, the group had no idea that this would be a memorable moment. “Everyone was young. We didn’t see that we were doing something important, a milestone”, he says.
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