SMIL ( sv, Siffermaskinen i Lund, "The Number Machine in Lund") was a first-generation computer built at

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion Lund, Sweden. SMIL was based on the IAS architecture developed by

John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...

. Carl-Erik Fröberg belonged to the group of five young Swedish scientists 1947–48 that IVA sent to the U.S. to gather information about the early computer development, and then came to strongly influence the development in Sweden. Fröberg visited with Erik Stemme the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

, and John von Neumann's research group. Back in Lund, he played a leading role in the creation of SMIL, which was the first computer developed in Lund and among the first in Sweden. SMIL was introduced in 1956 and then was in operation until 1970. In February 1962 SMIL was fitted with a compiler for ALGOL 60. The compiler was constructed by Torgil Ekman and Leif Robertson. Carl-Erik Fröberg was also behind the early emergence of

numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of numerical methods ...

as a separate university subject. In this context, he wrote himself and collaborated with others on several textbooks in computer education, for example, ''Textbook on Numerical Analysis'' (1962) and ''Textbook of Algol'' (1964). These books were widely distributed and translated into several languages. Parts of SMIL are exhibited at

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal pop ...

Technical Museum. On January 4, 2006, an

emulator In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use pe ...

of SMIL named SMILemu was released with a Java and version.

References

IAS architecture computers Lund University {{compu-hardware-stub

See also

References