Museum of Computing Machinery

Italian computer science was born thanks to the pioneering work of a group of scientists, politicians, and industrialists, aware that training and research in the field of information technologies would contribute to the social, economic, and cultural change of the country. Central to this adventure was the role of Pisa: it was here that, in the second half of the 1950s, the first Italian scientific calculator, the Calcolatrice Elettronica Pisana (CEP), was built, in synergy with the Olivetti Electronic Research Laboratory. The Museum of Computing Instruments has been located since 1993 in the "Vecchi Macelli" area, the former nineteenth-century slaughterhouse with its structure still intact. The museum's collection ranges from the second half of the nineteenth century to the late 1990s, passing through iconic objects such as Galileo's proportional compass, the Programma 101, considered the first "personal computer," and the Commodore 64, the best-selling computer ever. Currently, the museum consists of five rooms open to the public where the most important pieces of the collection are exhibited.