
Jacek Karpiński (9 April 1927 21 February 2010) was a Polish pioneer in
computer engineering
Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer enginee ...
and
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...
.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, he was a soldier in the
Batalion Zośka of the
Polish Home Army, and was awarded multiple times with a
Cross of Valour. He took part in
Operation Kutschera (intelligence) and the
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...
, where he was heavily wounded.
Later, he became a developer of one of the first
machine learning
Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence.
Machine ...
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
s, techniques for
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
and
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...
recognition.
After receiving a
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. I ...
award in 1960, he travelled for several years around the academic centres in the United States, including
MIT,
Harvard,
Caltech
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 ...
, and many others.
In 1971, he designed one of the first minicomputers, the
K-202. Because of the policy on
computer development in the People's Republic of Poland, belonging to the
Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (, ; English abbreviation COMECON, CMEA, CEMA, or CAME) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along wi ...
that time, the K-202 was never mass-produced.
Karpiński later became a pig farmer, and in 1981, after receiving a passport, emigrated to
Switzerland.
He also founded the Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence of the
Polish Academy of Sciences
The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of ...
in the early 1960s.
Family and childhood
Jacek Karpiński was born on 9 April 1927 in
Turin
Turin ( , 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 from 1861 to 1865. Th ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
into a family of Polish intellectuals and
alpinists {{unreferenced, date=March 2019
Alpine climbing (german: Alpinklettern) is a branch of climbing in which the primary aim is very often to reach the summit of a mountain. In order to do this high rock faces or pinnacles requiring several lengths o ...
. His father, Adam 'Akar' Karpiński, was a prominent aeronautic engineer (who co-constructed the
SL-1 Akar
Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, also known as SL-1 or the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR), was a United States Army experimental nuclear reactor in the Western United States, western United States at the Idaho National Laboratory#His ...
, the first glider constructed entirely by the Poles) and inventor, credited with projects of innovative climbing equipment (
crampons, 'Akar-Ramada' tent). His mother,
Wanda Czarnocka-Karpińska
Wanda is a female given name of Polish origin. It probably derives from the tribal name of the Wends.Campbell, Mike"Meaning, Origin, and History of the Name Wanda."''Behind the Name.'' Accessed on August 12, 2010. The name has long been popular in ...
, was a respected physician who went on to become Dean of the
University of Physical Education in Warsaw
A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' ...
. Both were pioneers of winter mountaineering in the
Tatra Mountains
The Tatra Mountains (), Tatras, or Tatra (''Tatry'' either in Slovak () or in Polish () - '' plurale tantum''), are a series of mountains within the Western Carpathians that form a natural border between Slovakia and Poland. They are the h ...
(first successful winter attacks on
Banówka,
Nowy Wierch,
Lodowy Szczyt and others). Adam Karpiński was also a member of a Polish expedition into the
Andes
The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...
, which was the first to climb the peak
Mercedario (6720 m.). Karpiński himself was due to be born in the Vallot winter hut near
Mont Blanc, but due to the extreme weather conditions, his parents had to retreat to Turin, where their first child was born.
Karpiński had one younger brother, Marek, who also became an electrical engineer. The family moved from
Biała Podlaska
Biała Podlaska ( la, Alba Ducalis) is a city in eastern Poland with 56,498 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is situated in the Lublin Voivodeship (since 1999), having previously been the capital of Biała Podlaska Voivodeship (1975–1998). ...
to
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is official ...
in 1934, where Wanda took a job at Physical University of Warsaw and Adam worked in
PZL (Polish Aviation Works). Karpiński's father died in September 1939 during an expedition to
Nanda Devi
Nanda Devi is the second-highest mountain in India, after Kangchenjunga, and the highest located entirely within the country (Kangchenjunga is on the border of India and Nepal). It is the 23rd-highest peak in the world.
Nanda Devi was consi ...
in the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over ...
. After an unsuccessful attack on the summit, along with
Stefan Bernadzikiewicz
Stefan may refer to:
* Stefan (given name)
* Stefan (surname)
* Ștefan, a Romanian given name and a surname
* Štefan, a Slavic given name and surname
* Stefan (footballer) (born 1988), Brazilian footballer
* Stefan Heym, pseudonym of Germa ...
, he decided to climb the nearby
Tirsuli (7039m), where both were killed by an avalanche.
Wartime
Karpiński's life was changed not only by his father's death but by the outbreak of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. Despite his young age (fourteen at the time), by pretending to be seventeen, he managed to join the
Gray Ranks, a Polish underground
paramilitary boy scouts organization, where he served in
Grupy Szturmowe (Assault Groups).
In early 1943, he was severely injured while working on homemade bombs for an underground sabotage operation when one of them accidentally exploded in the basement of his house. He lost sight in both eyes and faced the serious threat of hand-amputation. After his mother's intervention and the help of her fellow physicians, his eyes recovered fully and the hand was saved, but he never regained total control over it. After the recovery, Karpiński resumed his activities in the
Home Army
The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II, resistance movement in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed i ...
.
With the help of his mother, Wanda, and brother, Marek, who both also actively participated in the resistance effort, the family established a secret resistance outpost in their family home on Obserwatorów Street. The place was an outpost for
Juliusz "Laudański" Deczkowski's unit and contained a clandestine shooting range. It was also a hideout for
Stanisław Miedza-Tomaszewski
Corporal Stanisław Władysław Miedza-Tomaszewski (March 13, 1913 – December 15, 2000), underground ''nom de guerre'' Miedza (footpath between fields in Polish), was a Polish war artist, and underground fighter.
Member of the Polish resistance ...
, a Home Army officer working for its
Informational Department.
Karpiński participated in numerous field operations, including
Sieczychy Operation
Sieczychy is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Długosiodło, within Wyszków County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Długosiodło, north of Wyszków, and north-east of Warsaw.
...
(Akcja pod Sieczychami), as a soldier, and Operation Kutschera, as a part of recon under
Wiesław "Sem" Krajewski. After the formation of the Home Army's
''Zośka'' battalion, Karpiński enrolled, where he befriended poet
Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński
Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, (; nom de guerre: Jan Bugaj; 22 January 1921 – 4 August 1944) was a Polish poet and Home Army soldier, one of the most well known of the Generation of Columbuses, the young generation of Polish poets, of whom several ...
, both being commanders of smaller sub-units.
Karpiński also participated in the
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...
. On the first day of fighting, he was trapped weaponless with around 30 other soldiers in a hospital building on Koszykowa street after the weaponry supply had been mistakenly directed somewhere else. While evacuating the unit, Karpiński's group was caught under heavy fire, which resulted in most of the evacuees dead. Karpiński himself was shot with a
9mm caliber gun a bullet was stuck in his backbone but he survived. Found next day by the hospital's nurses, he received treatment but remained
paralyzed. Released from hospital after the Uprising's collapse, he rejoined his family in
Pruszków but remained unable to stand or walk. The family moved through
Cracow and
Zakopane to a small village of
Murzasichle
Murzasichle is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Poronin, within Tatra County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately south-east of Poronin, east of Zakopane, and south of the regional capital Kr ...
in the Tatras, where they remained through the rest of the war. During the course of the war, Karpiński was awarded the Cross of Valour three times.
Post-war
After World War II, Karpiński's family moved to
Radomsko
Radomsko is a city in southern Poland with 44,700 inhabitants (2021). It is situated on the Radomka river in the Łódź Voivodeship (since 1999), having previously been in Piotrków Trybunalski Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the county se ...
, and he started to attend local high school. He was forced to learn how to walk again, which he did during hiking trips in the mountains with his brother and
Józef Lityński
Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...
. He completed the entire high school curriculum in one year and passed the baccalaureate with flying colours. Afterwards, Karpiński moved to
Łódź
Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...
to begin university education at the Faculty of Electro-Mechanical Sciences within the local
polytechnic
Polytechnic is most commonly used to refer to schools, colleges, or universities that qualify as an institute of technology or vocational university also sometimes called universities of applied sciences.
Polytechnic may also refer to:
Educat ...
. After two years, he moved to
Warsaw University of Technology
The Warsaw University of Technology ( pl, Politechnika Warszawska, lit=Varsovian Polytechnic) is one of the leading institutes of technology in Poland and one of the largest in Central Europe. It employs 2,453 teaching faculty, with 357 professor ...
from which he graduated in 1951.
Karpiński, just as many other former Zośka battalion veterans, influenced by former Home Army high officer
Jan "Radosław" Mazurkiewicz's call, revealed himself to the Communists, but unlike many, he was spared imprisonment. Nevertheless, he was forced to change workplace several times, eventually receiving a
work warrant
Work may refer to:
* Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community
** Manual labour, physical work done by humans
** House work, housework, or homemaking
** Working animal, an animal tr ...
for T-12 factory of electrical components in
Żerań. During the time Karpiński was planning to flee Poland, he even worked on designing a mini-submarine in which he would be able to cross the Baltic Sea and reach the Danish island of
Bornholm
Bornholm () is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea, to the east of the rest of Denmark, south of Sweden, northeast of Germany and north of Poland.
Strategically located, Bornholm has been fought over for centuries. It has usually been ruled by ...
. However, after the first sights of the
Polish thaw, he decided to stay. In 1955 he was offered a job at the Polish Academy of Sciences' Institute of Basic Problems, which he accepted. There he worked under
Leszek Filipkowski
Leszek () is a Slavic Polish male given name, originally ''Lestko'', ''Leszko'' or ''Lestek'', related to ''Lech'', ''Lechosław'' and Czech ''Lstimir''.
Individuals named Leszek celebrate their name day on June 3.
Notable people
* Lestko
* Le ...
on the design of the prototype
ultrasonography
Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hear it. This limit varies f ...
device.
AAH
His first independent project was the AAH — Analytical Analyzer of Harmonics. Karpiński was asked by a long-time friend, Józef Lityński, an employee of the State Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology, whom he had known from his time in Radomsko, to build a device to help calculate
Fourier integrals Fourier may refer to:
People named Fourier
*Joseph Fourier (1768–1830), French mathematician and physicist
*Charles Fourier (1772–1837), French utopian socialist thinker
*Peter Fourier (1565–1640), French saint in the Roman Catholic Church a ...
. The Institute hoped the device could help improve the effectiveness of long-term weather
forecasts. Karpiński gathered a team of five people and constructed a computer based on
vacuum tubes
A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied.
The type known as a ...
in 1957. The machine had been used for two years when it was accidentally destroyed. Karpiński himself claimed AAH raised the precision of forecasts by 10%, an estimate which has not been contested. A part of the engineering team was Karpiński's brother Marek, who worked with him successfully until his tragic death in 1957 during a climbing expedition in the Tatras.
AKAT-1
The breakthrough achievement of Karpiński's career was the construction of AKAT-1 in 1959 in co-operation with engineer
Janusz Tomaszewski. AKAT-1 was a pioneering work the world's first
differential equation
In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, a ...
s analyzer based on
transistors
upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink).
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...
. Karpiński built the device during his spell at the
Polish Academy of Science's Institute of Automatics
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
, where he found employment after the success of AAH. The aim of AKAT-1 was to simulate various complex dynamic processes like
heat transfer
Heat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that concerns the generation, use, conversion, and exchange of thermal energy (heat) between physical systems. Heat transfer is classified into various mechanisms, such as thermal conduction ...
or a
shock absorber
A shock absorber or damper is a mechanical or hydraulic device designed to absorb and damp shock impulses. It does this by converting the kinetic energy of the shock into another form of energy (typically heat) which is then dissipated. Mos ...
's mechanics. The innovativeness of the device was acknowledged by historians of computer science e.g.
Maciej Sysło Maciej (Polish pronunciation: ) is a Polish given name, the etymological equivalent of Matthias. Its diminutive forms are Maciek, Maciuś.
Namedays according to Polish calendar: 30 January, 24 February, 14 May
Maciej may refer to:
Arts and ente ...
claims it has to be conceded that Karpiński's effort preceded any other similar device.
[Lipiński 2014, p. 136] The construction was also lauded for its aesthetical merits the panel designed by leading Polish artists
Emil Cieślar
Emil or Emile may refer to:
Literature
*''Emile, or On Education'' (1762), a treatise on education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
* ''Émile'' (novel) (1827), an autobiographical novel based on Émile de Girardin's early life
*''Emil and the Detective ...
,
Olgierd Rutkowski
Algirdas ( be, Альгерд, Alhierd, uk, Ольгерд, Ольґерд, Olherd, Olgerd, pl, Olgierd; – May 1377) was the Grand Duke of Lithuania. He ruled the Lithuanians and Ruthenians from 1345 to 1377. With the help of his brot ...
,
Stanisław Siemek Stanislav and variants may refer to:
People
*Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.)
Places
* Stanislav, a coastal village in Kherson, Ukraine
* Stanislaus County, Cali ...
and
Andrzej Wróblewski had been considered to 'innovatively merge all functions in a congruent and attractive form that anticipated the future trends'.
The machine has been domestically welcomed warmly, having been covered by a host of country-wide media, including national television
TVP1
TVP1 (TVP Jeden, ''Program I Telewizji Polskiej'', ''"Jedynka"'') is the main public television channel of TVP (Telewizja Polska S.A.), Poland's national television broadcaster. It was the first Polish channel to be broadcast and remains one ...
and
Polish Film Chronicle.
Currently, the machine can be seen in the
Museum of Technology in Warsaw.
UNESCO scholarship in the United States
The success of AKAT-1 enabled Karpiński to be put forward by Poland as its candidate for the UNESCO worldwide award for young engineers in 1960. Karpiński's work was evaluated with around 200 other contestants by an UNESCO international committee, and he turned out to be among the six laureates. As a reward, he was allowed to go on a half-year scholarship in the United States to visit major technological centres in the country. During the scholarship, which has been eventually extended to a full year, Karpiński managed to visit around twenty universities and laboratories, among them Computation Laboratory at
Harvard,
Caltech
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 ...
,
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...
and
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, i ...
. During his stay he met with a number of leading computer scientists of the time including
John Eckert,
Claude Shannon
Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as a "father of information theory".
As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts In ...
and
Edward F. Moore. Despite the numerous offers to stay in the United States and move his work there, Karpiński decided to come back to Poland. Later, it emerged that before and during his stay in the United States, Karpiński cooperatated with Polish intelligence to collect data, which sparked controversies around his person. Karpiński himself, interviewed on the matter after the fall of communism, was reluctant to comment the matter, but insisted the agreement with intelligence officer cpt.
Zygmunt Goć Zygmunt, Zigmunt, Zigmund and spelling variations thereof are masculine given names and occasionally surnames. People so named include:
Given name Medieval period
* Sigismund I the Old (1467–1548), Zygmunt I Stary in Polish, King of Poland and Gr ...
was limited to reporting on the state of technical progress of American facilities.
Perceptron
Shortly after his return from the US, Karpiński, inspired by his American experience, decided to implement some of his newest ideas at home. He convinced the director of the Institute of Automatics
Stefan Węgrzyn
Stefan may refer to:
* Stefan (given name)
* Stefan (surname)
* Ștefan, a Romanian given name and a surname
* Štefan, a Slavic given name and surname
* Stefan (footballer) (born 1988), Brazilian footballer
* Stefan Heym, pseudonym of German writ ...
to build a
perceptron a device built according to
Frank Rosenblatt's ideas, able to learn how to discern and recognize objects and shapes. The idea was successfully realized, and the Polish perceptron was completed in 1964, being one of the first of such in the world and the first known in the Communist bloc.
KAR-65
Soon after the completion of the perceptron, Karpiński fell out with Węgrzyn, which forced him to leave the Institute of Automatics. He moved to the
Polish Academy of Sciences' Institute of Physics
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
led by
Jerzy Pniewski. Pniewski's team worked on the analysis of data from
CERN pictures from
Glaser bubble chambers, traces of
colliding electrons and neutrons. The Institute struggled with the amount of data and was looking for a mechanism to speed up the processing of data. In 1965, on Pniewski's request Karpiński designed a scanner, and after its success, began work on the mathematical machine that could compute the scanned data. With the help of newly formed team of seven people including later long-time cooperators
Tadeusz Kupniewski
''Tadeusz'' is a Polish language, Polish first name, derived from Thaddeus, Thaddaeus.
Tadeusz may refer to:
* Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski (1895–1966), Polish military leader
* Tadeusz Borowski (1922–1951), Polish writer and The Holocaust survivo ...
and
Teresa Pajkowska
Teresa (also Theresa, Therese; french: Thérèse) is a feminine given name.
It originates in the Iberian Peninsula in late antiquity. Its derivation is uncertain, it may be derived from Greek θερίζω (''therízō'') "to harvest or rea ...
, Karpiński finished the machine in 1968, dubbed KAR-65, after three years of work. Due to financial constraints, KAR-65 was built using Polish
germane transistors
TG-40 TG-4 may refer to:
* Schweizer SGS 2-33, a glider used by the United States Air Force Academy, by 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation
* Laister-Kauffman TG-4, a glider used by the United States Army Air Force in World War II
* Naval ...
and
DOG-61 diodes, considerably slower than their western counterparts. KAR-65 was asynchronic and used a dedicated operation system, designed by Karpiński. The computer could perform 100 thousand operations per second, which made it the fastest Polish computer at the time. The computer consisted of two parts, both measuring 1,7m x 1,4m x 0,4m, but was still considerably smaller than the leading Polish computers of the time,
Odra Odra may refer to:
Rivers
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* Odra (Kupa), a river in Croatia
* Odra (Spain), a river in Spain
Populated places
* Odra, Silesian Voivodeship, a village in southern ...
mainframes. The computer's interface was designed by the artist
Stanisław Tomaszewski Stanislav and variants may refer to:
People
*Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.)
Places
* Stanislav (Village), Stanislav, a coastal village in Kherson, Ukraine
* Sta ...
, who had also worked on the AKAT-1. The total cost of construction was estimated to be 6 million
zlotys. Only one machine was built and it continued to work in the Institute of Physics for 20 years. It currently resides in the Museum of Technology in Warsaw.
Even though the computer was a technological success, most likely due to the pressure of competing computer manufacturers (chiefly
Elwro, producer of Odra mainframes), many reports on KAR-65s were halted by the censorship. Karpiński had his 1969 paper from Polish Informatical Conference in Zakopane blocked from printing. His article on KAR-65 in ''Maszyny Matematyczne'' from the same year was blocked, as well. A similar fate befell the articles on the subject by popular journalists
Stefan Bratkowski
Stefan Tadeusz Aleksander Bratkowski (22 November 1934 – 18 April 2021) was a Polish journalist and writer. He was an opposition activist during the Polish People's Republic.
References
1934 births
2021 deaths
Polish journalists
Polish ...
and
Aleksander Bocheński
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...
. Before his interview with the TV programme ''Tele-Echo'' Karpiński received an official ban on talking about the computer. He complained about the matter to the President of the
Committee of Science and Technology
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them mor ...
Jacek Kaczmarek
Jacek is a Polish given name of Greek origin related Hyacinth, through the archaic form of ''Jacenty''. Its closely related equivalents are: Jacinto (Spanish and Portuguese), Giacinto (Italian), Jácint ( Hungarian) and Jacint (Catalan, shortened ...
(28.04.1970), but received no backing.
K-202
In 1970, Karpiński decided to establish his own institution to work on his new idea, a minicomputer of original architecture, for which he sought backing from state officials. Karpiński was given permission to found Microcomputers' Construction Plant (Zakład Budowy Mikrokomputerów) in
Warszawa-Włochy in 1970. The basis for the computer's construction was the fruit of the joint-venture agreement between the Polish state (represented by
Metronex, a foreign trade office) and British private partners companies
Data-Loop and
MB Metals
MB, Mb or M. B. may refer to:
Businesses and organizations
* Mälarhöjden/Bredäng Hockey, a Swedish ice hockey club
* Media Blasters, an American multimedia entertainment distributor
* Mediobanca, and Italian company with Borsa Italiana sto ...
. Karpiński, who orchestrated the agreement, was appointed technical director, fully responsible for the engineering aspect of the venture. The parts and finances were to be supplied by the British, but the entire construction and production process was to be done in Poland, something that Karpiński strongly insisted on. MB Metals and Data-Loop were given rights to sell the computer in all countries, except Poland. The companies were also solely responsible for the products promotion and distribution.
Karpiński collected a team of 113 employees, including programmers and hardware engineers such as
Zbigniew Szwaj
Zbigniew () is a Polish masculine given name, originally Zbygniew . This West Slavic name is derived from the Polish elements ''Zby-'' (from ''zbyć, zbyć się, or pozbyć się'', meaning "to dispel", "to get rid of") and ''gniew'', meaning "ange ...
,
Teresa Pajkowska
Teresa (also Theresa, Therese; french: Thérèse) is a feminine given name.
It originates in the Iberian Peninsula in late antiquity. Its derivation is uncertain, it may be derived from Greek θερίζω (''therízō'') "to harvest or rea ...
,
Andrzej Ziemkiewicz
Andrzej is the Polish language, Polish form of the given name Andrew.
Notable individuals with the given name Andrzej
* Andrzej Bartkowiak (born 1950), Polish film director and cinematographer
* Andrew Bobola, Andrzej Bobola, S.J. (1591–16 ...
and
Elżbieta Jezierska
Elżbieta or Elžbieta may refer to:
* Elżbieta, Lublin Voivodeship, a village in eastern Poland
* Elżbieta-Kolonia
Elżbieta-Kolonia is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Opole Lubelskie, within Opole Lubelskie County, Lublin ...
. The main objective of the project was to build a computer, which would be small, affordable (around 6.5 thousand dollars apiece), easy to produce and failproof. Great emphasis was also put on its modularity Karpiński was determined to build an entire system, with flexible complexity and arrangement in line with user's needs. Production of 1300 units was planned in two initial series. The primary objective was commercial, but Karpiński intended for K-202 to be used in a vast variety of applications in industry, administration, science and military (land and navy).
The team worked for three years and in 1973 first prototypes were completed. The result was a minicomputer highly innovative in many aspects. K-202 was constructed entirely with microchips, using breakthrough 1971 Intel 4004 chips. It was also asynchronic and used
floating point
In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can be r ...
representation, as KAR-65. Moreover, K-202 used
memory segmentation
Memory segmentation is an operating system memory management technique of division of a computer's primary memory into segments or sections. In a computer system using segmentation, a reference to a memory location includes a value that identi ...
with
paging, the first minicomputer to do so. Additionally, it performed close to a million operations per second. These two things made K-202 faster than its potentially most dangerous competitors
DEC's
PDP-11
The PDP-11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of all models were so ...
and
CTL's
Modular One. The computer was small, could fit on the desk and weighed 35 kilograms. It was also highly shock-, water- and temperature-resistant. K-202 used authorial operation system SOK and dedicated ASSK programming language, but also supported
ALGOL 60
ALGOL 60 (short for ''Algorithmic Language 1960'') is a member of the ALGOL family of computer programming languages. It followed on from ALGOL 58 which had introduced code blocks and the begin and end pairs for delimiting them, representing a k ...
,
FORTRAN IV,
BASIC
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
and others. The important feature was also a possibility of accessing up to 64 devices in the same time, hence the high level of freedom of architectural composition of a system.
Despite the technical excellence of the computer, it never reached mass production. Only 30 machines were ever produced and the conditions of work in Karpiński's team remained laboratorious rather than industrial. The reasons of this outcome remain unclear and are still a matter of historical debate. Karpiński himself pointed at the intentional efforts of some high-level officials, mostly
Jerzy Huk
Jerzy is the Polish version of the masculine given name George. The most common nickname for Jerzy is Jurek (), which may also be used as an official first name. Occasionally the nickname Jerzyk may be used, which means "swift" in Polish.
People
...
, director at , a local computer engineering giant and monopolist, manufacturer of Odra mainframes. Another possible enemy of Karpiński was col. Ryszard Kulesza, director of the
Institute of Mathematical Machines
An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institute, research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body.
In some countr ...
within the Polish Academy of Sciences. Others, among them Stefan Bratkowski and Maciej Sysło, point out the general distrust toward foreign companies and unwillingness to take risks within the ruling class, especially if the project involved consumption of high amount of foreign currency, crucial to the failing communist economy.
[Lipiński 2014, p. 162] Another possible explanation for the lack of political will for Karpiński's case is the rise of the new, all-Comecon project of building a new family of computers within the communist bloc dubbed
Riad Riad or Riyad may refer to:
* Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia
* Riyad, Mauritania
* Riad (name), a given name and surname (including a list of people with the name, also Riyad or Riyadh)
* Riad (architecture), a traditional Moroccan house ...
. The project gained absolute priority, especially after its director Lavryonov's visit in Warsaw in autumn of 1972. Stefan Bratkowski point out that K-202 had the chance to succeed only as a part subjugated to the entire system, which Karpiński declined outright, considering the Riad project to be much inferior to K-202. A lack of proper industrial and institutional background, as well as Karpiński's personal traits stubbornness, individualism and lack of social skills are also mentioned as possible reasons.
Karpiński found himself unable to find sufficient political backing, despite moderate support from the influential
Franciszek Szlachcic Franciszek () is a masculine given name of Poles, Polish origin (female form Franciszka). It is a cognate of Francis (given name), Francis, Francisco, François, and Franz (given name), Franz. People with the name include:
*Edward Pfeiffer (Francis ...
and
Józef Tejchma. He also rejected signing up for the
communist party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
, which could have raised his chances significantly, according to the then Minister of Culture Józef Tejchma. Critics started to expose the high costs of the project (K-202 cost was $6500 per unit for foreign clients), and the lack of commercial success, accusing Karpiński of
mismanagement,
fraud
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compen ...
and
embezzlement
Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type ...
. As a result, he lost his position within a project, which was swiftly rebranded as after very minor alterations (around 1% of functional content) and was not developed further, effectively ending the K-202's chances of commercial success. Most of the 30 prototypes worked extensively for several years in 43 different institutions throughout Poland. For example, in 1972, a K-202 machine was used to computerize the calculations of results of the European wrestling championships. Currently, only a few remain; one can be seen in the Museum of Technology in Warsaw. The only working copy is in private hands.
Later life
Disappointed with the outcome of K-202 production, Karpiński in 1978 decided to move to the countryside near
Olsztyn
Olsztyn ( , ; german: Allenstein ; Old Prussian: ''Alnāsteini''
* Latin: ''Allenstenium'', ''Holstin'') is a city on the Łyna River in northern Poland. It is the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, and is a city with county right ...
(village
Dąbrówka Wielka) and started a small animal husbandry ranch. In 1981, on the invitation of
Stefan Kudelski, Karpiński moved to Switzerland to work on
Nagra tape recorders.
In 1990, after a series of unsuccessful business ventures, Karpiński decided to return to Poland. In the 1990s he served as an advisor on computer science to
Andrzej Olechowski and
Leszek Balcerowicz. He also tried to kickstart his own business ventures a hand-held text-scanner 'Pen-Reader' invented during his stay in
Switzerland and cash registers 'Libella', which both failed.
In 2009, he was awarded the
Officer's Cross of Polonia Restituta for remarkable achievements in computer engineering.
Jacek Karpiński died on 21 February 2010 in
Wrocław
Wrocław (; , . german: Breslau, , also known by other names) is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, roughly ...
, where he had lived since 1996.
In 2010, he was posthumously awarded an even more prestigious
Commander's Cross of Polonia Restituta, third-highest level of this order.
Controversies
It has been revealed that Jacek Karpiński worked as a secret informant for the
Służba Bezpieczeństwa since 1961. He received considerable financial rewards for his work, including foreign holidays with his wife sponsored by the state. Karpiński's work was mostly dedicated to collecting technological data. This was also stated by him to be the condition under which he is inclined to provide information. Karpiński was a valuable asset, having travelled extensively since the 1950s and possessing a wide range of international contacts. He provided the intelligence with a lot of useful information beginning with the international Expo in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
in 1961. But the peak of his activity was reached during his trip to the United States, during which he amassed and passed an extensive amount of information on both the technological centres, but also personalities of American science and industry.
Historian
Adam Kochajkiewicz
Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Book of Genesis, Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a coll ...
claims his cooperation was heavily influenced by naivete on the situation in the scientific world and on the goals and methods of the intelligence. The intensity of Karpiński's cooperation decreased significantly in the 1970s, when Karpiński became not a cooperator, but a target for the intelligence. Karpiński had his passport withdrawn, informants were planted in his closest environment to gather information on him, his phone calls and private correspondence was also monitored.
Also, the scale of Karpiński's engineering achievement is hotly debated. It is claimed that his construction, most notably K-202, were innovative enough (or even superior) to successfully compete with the worldwide competition (most notably
PDP-11
The PDP-11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of all models were so ...
and
Modular One) and as such K-202's failure marks one of the biggest opportunity of
People's Republic of Poland
The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million nea ...
's for fast modernization Adrian Markowski compared Karpiński to Bill Gates. It is also stated that Karpiński's defeat was primarily caused by administrative incompetence and acts of sabotage by his enemies. Critics point out the exaggerations in Karpiński's evaluation of his work and claim that the project's fate within state structures was, at least partly, justified.
They, among them Maciej Sysło, underline the massive scale of funds and organization needed for the success of a new device and point out the uncertainty about the machine's real capabilities.
References in culture
Jacek Karpiński is portrayed in
Roman Bratny
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
's novel ''Lot ku ziemi'' as Marek Zych.
Books
* P. Lipiński Geniusz i Świnie. Rzecz o Jacku Karpińskim, wyd. JanKa, 2014
* B. Kluska Automaty liczą. Komputery PRL., ResNovae, 2013
* A. Targowski, Informatyka bez złudzeń. 40 lat między informatyką a polityką i 20 lat między Polską Ameryką, 2001
* R. Bratny Lot ku ziemi, PIW, 1976
* A. Kochajkiewicz Działania służb specjalnych Polski Ludowej wobec inżyniera Jacka Karpińskiego w latach 1950–1990, Przegląd Archiwalny IPN, 5/2012
See also
*
Analog computer
An analog computer or analogue computer is a type of computer that uses the continuous variation aspect of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities (''analog signals'') to model the problem being solved. ...
*
K-202
*
Minicomputer
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...
*
List of pioneers in computer science
References
External links
*
"Polski Bill Gates i świnie"Gazeta Wyborcza (Polish)
(Polish)
onet.pl (Polish)
kopalniawiedzy.pl (Polish)
"Jak powstawało K-202"(Polish)
"50 lat polskich komputerów"(Polish)
"Recenzja książki ''Geniusz i świnie''"(Polish)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Karpinski, Jacek
Polish computer scientists
1927 births
2010 deaths
Computer designers