How a university computerizes itself

Attempt at a first investigation

This text traces – in a broad outline – the arrival of digital computing at the University of Vienna. Contemporary history studies on the establishment of computerization, starting with the first programmable computing facility in the early 1960s, reveal one significant flaw: the downright tumultuous entrance of digital computing technology – also a technology of data storage and word processing – has brought about such a fundamental transformation in the academic world in less than half a century, that apparently there not yet been time to analyze this process historically.