The first Hungarian IT teacher would be 110 years old on January 2: Mihály Kovács taught computer science before PCs

Today would be the 110th birthday of Piarist monk Mihály Kovács, the first Hungarian secondary school IT teacher, whose nearly four-decade career is exemplary for today’s teachers. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was completely committed to imparting the most up-to-date knowledge to his students, so two decades before the advent of personal computers, he started a cybernetics course for the students of the Piarist High School in Budapest.

The course also allowed students to learn about the operating principles of analog and digital computers, so it is not surprising that many of them later chose computer science as a profession, fulfilling the expectations of Mihály Kovács, who said that “if it becomes possible for the masses to become familiar with the elements of cybernetics, then it can be hoped that in due time [by the time computers become widespread] a suitable pool of professionals will also be available.”

He taught computer science before the computer revolution

When Mihály Kovács announced his speciality, during the 1958-59 academic year, only a few computers were operating in the entire country: an electromechanical, not yet Neumann-based machine was at the Technical University, and the M-3, the   first domestic vacuum tube computer, was still under construction at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, while the Central Statistical Office laid the foundation for computer science with its punched card machine fleet.

Mihály Kovács also excelled in being the first to apply the methods of computer science and cybernetics to the teaching of other subjects, such as physics: over the years, within the framework of the cybernetics speciality of the Piarist High School, those logic game machines were made that became national, and even They have gained an international reputation for their technical and scientific education. The Piarist Order was an educational monastic order, whose traditions were well-suited to the activities of Uncle Miska, who was open to new ideas – while it was disconcerting to the Hungarian state and press at the time that one of the outstanding pedagogical innovators of the era came from the church sphere, which was disadvantaged in many ways.

In the mid-sixties, within the walls of the school, students visiting the professional club, led by Mihály Kovács and Lajos Terényi, developed a teaching-answering machine, and two years later, the Mikromat cybernetic construction kit for teaching the operating principles of computers – the original and working replica of the latter can be seen live at the Neumann Society’s computer history exhibition.

The Mikromat has been in use since 1967 It was also available in toy stores and school supply stores until the early 1970s. The set also included an instructional book titled A Practical Path to Cybernetics, written by Mihály Kovács, and through the set, thousands of young Hungarians were able to learn the basics of cybernetics.

Where every high school graduate studied computer science in 1984

In the 1970s, Mihály Kovács also organized programming courses for high school students, after he managed to purchase a programmable Hewlett-Packard desktop calculator, which was a novelty at the time, in 1974. From then on, computer education occupied a significant part of his time, especially after the high school managed to acquire its first full-fledged microcomputer in the early eighties.

The computer technology developments in Hungarian high schools that began around 1983 were partly based on his experimental results. In 1984, two years after his serious eye surgery and retirement, computer science education at the Piarist high school had reached such a level that every graduating student there studied computer science – that is, BASIC programming and the use of the Commodore C64 computer.

At the Piarist Order, high-tech technical education is passed down from generation to generation: Mihály Kovács wrote a monograph about his master, József Öveges, while his life was summarized by Piarist Father László Görbe, who will be one of the plenary speakers at the conference on January 15.