Luigi Dadda (April 29, 1923 – October 26, 2012) was an Italian computer engineer, best known for the design of the Dadda multiplier and as one of the first researchers on modern

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...

s in Italy. He was rector at the

Politecnico di Milano The Polytechnic University of Milan () is the largest technical university in Italy, with about 42,000 students. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and higher education courses in engineering, architecture and design. Founded in 18 ...

technical university from 1972 to 1984, collaborating on research at the same university until 2012. He was a Life Fellow of the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

. He studied

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at the Politecnico di Milano and graduated in 1947 with a thesis on signal transmission, a

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ra ...

radio bridge between the cities of

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

and

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into pr ...

. His research interests then turned to models and analog computers as an assistant professor, and in 1953 he received a grant from the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

in order to study at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

in Pasadena. In the interim, the Politecnico di Milano requested funding for a digital computer under the

Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $ in ) in economic re ...

; the request was granted in the sum of US$120,000, and the rector of the time, Prof. Cassinis, invited him to join the design team at the Computer Research Corporation of San Diego, since the machine, a Computer Research Company model CRC 102A, would not be maintained by the vendor after delivery to Italy, and it therefore needed to have in-house expertise on it. Dadda complied, thus forfeiting the NSF grant and transferring to San Diego. He would travel to Italy on an old Liberty merchant ship along with the precious machine, packed in cotton balls in order to protect its valves from dangerous vibrations. Upon disembarkation in Genoa, the machine was declared with customs as an "electrical appliance", as the only computer machine in the taxonomy of goods used at the time was a " punchcard machine", but a

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...

reader was not supplied with the computer, so it didn't fit the categorisation. An additional problem was that, at the time, Italy's taxation imposed the application of a small paper slip similar to a stamp (proving payment of duties) on each and every valve used in the machine. Since dismantling the machine to apply the slips was out of question, the customs allowed Dadda to pay the tax as a forfeit, and gave him a pack of slips to apply on the machine "as soon as possible". Those slips remained in a drawer in Dadda's desk. The machine reached, at last, the Politecnico di Milano in September 1954, where it was activated in the 2SUD back room, and became the first working digital computer in Italy and continental Europe. In the following years, the research activity of Dadda focused on the use of the machine for scientific and industrial applications, and training researchers and students of the Politecnico in Computer Science, where he created and taught the first courses on the subject. Notably, he studied how to enhance the ALUs of the machines, proposing solutions such as the Dadda multiplier, which significantly enhanced performance of those circuits. He reached the status of a full professor at the Politecnico in 1960, and was assigned the

Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

chair from 1962. He then moved to studying

Petri net A Petri net, also known as a place/transition (PT) net, is one of several mathematical modeling languages for the description of distributed systems. It is a class of discrete event dynamic system. A Petri net is a directed bipartite graph that ...

as a paradigm for the design of complex control systems. In

signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing '' signals'', such as sound, images, and scientific measurements. Signal processing techniques are used to optimize transmissions, ...

he proposed new systems for convolution. He has served as the director of the Computing Center and then of the Computer Architectures Lab of the "Dipartimento di Elettronica ed Informazione" of the Politecnico di Milano university. He was a founding member of the Italian Association for Computing in 1961 (and President between 1967 and 1970) and a co-founder and director of the distinguished Italian journal of computer science: Rivista di Informatica. He was the proposer of the European Information Network, realized by CEE under the project ''COST 11''. Between 1980 and 1982 he chaired the committee for science and technology of the

President of the Council of Ministers of Italy The Prime Minister of Italy, officially the President of the Council of Ministers ( it, link=no, Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri), is the head of government of the Italian Republic. The office of president of the Council of Ministers is ...

. He served as the president of the ALARI Institute at the Università della Svizzera Italiana in the Italian-speaking canton of Switzerland for over a decade. He was member of the Technical Committee and advisor in the Board of directors of

CSELT Centro Studi e Laboratori Telecomunicazioni (CSELT) was an Italian research center for telecommunication based in Torino, the biggest in Italy and one of the most important in Europe. It played a major role internationally especially in the stand ...

. He died on October 26, 2012 in Milano, Italy at the age of 89. In 2016 the prestigious "IEEE Milestone award" has been assigned to his memory in recognition of his contributions.Award ceremony
/ref>

References

Further reading