site.btaAugust 14, 1963: First Bulgarian Computer Put into Operation

On August 14, 1963, the first Bulgarian electronic digital computer was put into operation. It was named Vitosha and was put on display for the first time at a Bulgarian national exhibition in Moscow, USSR, in August 1963. The machine was designed for mathematical, and scientific and technical calculations.

The computer had a memory of 4,096 words. The device was some 4 metres wide and 2 metres high and was composed of 200 chassis.

The computer was developed in late 1961, and its setup began in the spring of 1963. Almost all parts were produced in the laboratory and workshop of the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS).

The machine has been developed within a project named "Building digital electronic calculating machines", headed by Lyubomir Iliev (pictured below), a corresponding member and chief scientific secretary of BAS. The team that designed the computer includes Blagovest Sendov, Georgi Alipiev, Dimitar Bogdanov, Dimitar Rachev, Encho Karmakov, Ilich Yulzari, Ivan Stanchev, Koril Boyanov, Mariya Dimitrova, Raffi Aslanyan and Stefan Peshev.