Mikkel Mikjær Christensen

I am currently working on a book about the Danish Comet computer. I am neither a historian nor do I have any kind of formal training or experience that qualifies me to do this kind of work, so I have had to learn a lot during this process. This talk is all about sharing these experiences and telling the story about some of the weird places in which I uncovered information and sources for my book. The book is not yet finished, but you can read more about it online or get a general feeling of what I do by checking out my YouTube channel.

The story of Denmark's computer industry started with the DASK in the 1950s. Shortly afterwards came the GIER. In the 1970s and 1980s, Denmark had three major computer hardware manufacturers: Regnecentralen, which was originally funded by the Marshall Plan and had been the governmental computation institute ever since the beginning, Christian Rovsing, which joined the party later on and finally Danish Data Electronics. All of them were internationally active companies that exported hardware to the entire world. There were also a handful of small niche manufacturers that made systems such as the Comet, Butler, James and the Vega Computer, which were largely one-hit wonders, all with exciting backstories. Come to this talk for a walk down memory lane of Danish computers.