Welcome

Our Department Overview

source: http://www.alexeng.edu.eg/eng/dept/computer/wiki/about

The Department of Computer Science And Automatic Control, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University was opened in the year 1969. At this time, it was considered the 1st of its nature in the Middle East.

The opening of this department was a result of the efforts of Prof. Dr. Naem Abou Taleb and Prof. Dr. Yehia El-Hakeem.

The efforts to introduce this new field began in the beginning of the 60s.

In 1964 an agreement with IBM was arranged to deliver the IBM 1620 Model 1, which costs at that time $99,000 after IBM gave a 66% discount to the University Of Alexandria.

This computer model was considered the 1st of its kind in the Egyptian Universities and was considered the second to enter Egypt.

The first one was owned by the Planning Institute.

The capabilities of this computer was considered sufficient at that time as its memory was 40 KBytes, used the BCD system and punched cards as the input unit. There were no disks or any storage devices attached to this computer.

Purchasing this computer was a great step forward. A lot of people at that time did not consider the importance of this step but the main aim from purchasing this computer was to use it in teaching and commercial applications.

This computer was firstly used in trainning postgraduate students and academic staff.

The year 1965-1966 was the beginning of teaching some courses on the usage of this computer to students of the Electrical Engineering Department.

These courses included the machine language of this computer SPS and a programing language FORTRAN II.

At this time the SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING CENTER was established as a private unit.

The primary purpose of this was to benefit from the capabilities of this computer and to contribute in the maintenance expenses.

The first activity of this center was to give training courses. This activity was the main activity of the center up till now. The activities of this center was enlarged to include consultations to companies and industrial organizations in the computer field, and developing programs for companies and organizations.