The first messages about the existence of Cimrman's C-language wererefused by many, for they believed Cimrman had not the necessary hardware to test it. Though the research about the technical equipmentof Cimrman's soda factory is still going on, we can now safely ignore any such objection.

Fig. 1. Cimrman originally wanted to use a high pressure airfor source code compilation but later abandoned the idea.

I apologize to all of you who found this article too long and I apologize even more to those who found it too short. I wanted to sketch at least roughly the main points of Kray-cek'swork. Taking into account the whole work consists of four fullCD-ROM disks, it was not an easy task. However, if you want to learn more, or have a question, I will be delighted to mediate the answer.

Martin Hruby - M.HRUBY@ZLIN.VUTBR.CZ

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Development of local networks (LAN)

As far as I know, JdC developed the theory of LANs around the end of80's of the last century. He could not supervise their building personallyas in summer 1890 he was invited by the local Czech club to Seattle, U.S.A.He wanted to present Internet as a world-wide communication systemon the Exposition in Prague in 1891 and he needed support from the otherside of the Atlantic (or Pacific, as he used a very comfortableconnection through Vladivostok). Going across vast Siberia Jara spottedthat 'local networks' cannot be perhaps used universally. For this casehe suggested the idea of 'wide area local networks', later knownas WLANs. This revolutionary idea was, as usual, not understood by hiscontemporaries.

When he returned to Prague, he foundno 'local networks'. Instead there was only a widely developednetwork of local pubs.

Servers form an important part of every local network.As almost every achievement of human intelect is in some way relatedto Cimrman, there is no reason to think it would be different with servers.Igor Novotny claims the word SERVER is an incorrect transcriptionof an old Latin greeting servus, often used by Cimrman.

Pavel Svoboda has a different but equally interesting explanation:

Cimrman soon found out that a computer is and must be 'a fast idiot'.To verify his ideas, he took a group of mentally ill patients froma local sanatorium, each of whom could very quickly executesome arithmetic operations.

In a local pub he installed the firstlocal network.

Here we feel obliged to note that it was R.P.Feynmann who firstreally understood the importance of this Cimrman's invention andusing Cimrman's notes (found by chance) successfully realizedsimilar computer based network while working on an atomic bomb.(R.P.Feynmann: Los Alamos from below).

I guess, there is no doubt about the country where the first localnetwork was realized. I was unfortunately unable to localize the exact place, where it happened - it may by a task for other researcherswho have more opportunities to visit different pubs and ask, whether there is (or was) a psychiatrical clinic nearby.The next possibility would be to try to locate the fragmentsof Cimrman's notes in the Los Alamos National Laboratory archive,if only R.P.Feynmann had left them there.

by Pavel Svoboda

Pavel Machek - MACHEK@FZU.CZ
Igor Novotny - IRNLTD@HP03.TROJA.MFF.CUNI.CZ
Pavel Svoboda - SVOBODA@APOLLO.KARLOV.MFF.CUNI.CZ

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Micr*soft Wind*ws

The stone did not break the window entirely, it onlymade a hole in it about the size of a palm.Master, being temporarily in a small financial crisis, could not affordto have a whole new window glass. Instead he had the offending hole framedso that he could insert a smaller window in it.He soon recognized the advantages of this system of'windows' within 'windows'. He could either only do Open Window,or if he wanted to have a lot of fresh air he opened (Maximized)the Main Window. The whole system proved to be useful enoughand Cimrman installed it also on other windows.Some windows were Tiled, some consisted of two layers (Cascade Windows).If you imagine also a Mouse, also sharing Cimrman's household,you are not for from what we now know as Micr*soft Wind*ws.Still a long time had to pass before they reached our computers.

It is true there is a long way fromthe concept to a final program but it is also true thatthe real mental father of Micr*soft Wind*ws is no oneelse but Jara da Cimrman.

• Cimrman lived alone. - Micr*soft Wind*ws are a single-user product.
• Cimrman's windows had no rails. - The protection of applications andfiles in Micr*soft Wind*ws is virtually nonexistent.
• Sometimes a window could not be closed.
• Other times a window could not be opened.
• System of 'windows within windows' was gradually improved but also grewmuch more complex and opening a bigger window took a really long time. - How long have you spent in front of an hourglass?

In spite of all the deficiencies, Cimrman's concept of 'windows within windows' proved to be so good,that it became a de facto standard for a modern user interface. Such is a fate of many of Master's inventions.We meet them every day usually without realizing whom they came from.

iVosH LUkAcoViC - XLUKACOV@HWLAB.FELK.CVUT.CZ
Michal Hrdlicka - BLOODIK@PHA.PVT.CZ

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Computers

It is known that, as a by-product, his soda factory also produced lotsof potato chips. In Autumn 1905, when there was an extraordinary potatoharvest in the Ukraine, his already overpacked soda-factory ran short ofstorage space and Cimrman had to introduce special measures. First of all hehad several temporary depots built (called 'zemljanka' in Russian), but itwas not enough and Cimrman had to switch the production from potato chips toless space-consuming micro-chips. These later became one of the buildingblocks of the computer industry. It is not entirely clear, however, whatCimrman used his microchips for. According to his sketches of a giantcalculator MANIAC (modest Cimrman used his nickname in place of his realname), some think that microchips were used as heat exchangers for overloadedcircuits. On the other hand, other sources assert that microchips were infact food for the on-line accountants, who, sitting inside the giganticconstruction, were printing and double-checking the results. Maybe bothare true. In any case, without microchips, Cimrman's way to computerswould be much longer.

But Cimrman had one more ace up his sleeve. It is generally knownthat during his expedition to the North Pole (not South Pole as colleagueUrban believes) he discovered, that at very low temperatures,some materials exhibit so-called superconductivity. Being concerned aboutthe flawless function of his gigantic calculator, Cimrman decided to installin it a few frozen super crystals, which should work as intermediatorsbetween the external conductors and the internal processing unit. For thispurpose he had a big DC refrigerator built in front of the factory,in which the crystals could gradually ripen. But soon he found out that thequality of the electrical grid in Russia was not adequate (the fridge waspowered from a small power station in a nearby Chernobyl). After a few daysin which the power was incessantly interrupted by numerous outages he had toconvert it to the AC current. This did not help much either, as on April 26,1906, the last evening before starting a test run of its calculator,a small accident happened in Chernobyl and the frozen crystals startedto melt. Jara did not loose his head, and using a bucketsaved what he could. His MANIAC was a bit slower without the supercrystalsbut on the other hand, Cimrman's Liquid Crystals caused a revolution indisplay technology. So, from his point of view, not much had reallyhappened.

With the regard to the dimensions of the disaster that happened in Chernobyl80 years later, we should, however, mention a few more details.The original Chernobyl power station was a small coal power plant(the change to a nuclear fuel did not occur sooner than in the late 60's),and was taken care of by a stoker Anton Porfyrjevic. On that particular dayin 1906, Anton came to work quite heavily drunk and after a few hours ofstoking he fell asleep and slept for four days untila Tzar's Inspector woke him up. Naturally, the boiler had been long cold andthe whole area had been without electricity for four days. Cimrman'sdescription of that event, emphasized by the (at that time free) Czech press,inspired the Czech poet Wolker to write the famous verses: "Anton, the powerplant stoker, put some coal in." Much to the credit of the Tzar's bureaucracy,Anton was immediately released from the contract for gross negligence.For a few years he tried to find some jobs abroad but as far as we know, bothof his temporary positions (an iceberg lookout on the Titanic and a chiefof the archduke Ferdinand's body-guards in Sarajevo) were total failures andAnton came back to his native Russia. In the middle of 1917 he moved toSt. Petersburg, where he later became the commander of the Winter-Palacedefence unit. There his track ends.

Let us now come back to Cimrman. Although the heating up of his calculator'scircuits itself lasted 3 weeks, he was quite satisfied with results of thetest run. Its numerical errors did not exceed 80% and on a chessboard it wasable to beat the cleverest goat from a local farm. Considering that(according to the latest research of Mr. Hedvicek)Cimrman probably spent a part of his life in the U.S.A, we have a goodreason to believe that the first American computer ENIAC, manufactured afterthe WWII, was only an improved version of Cimrman's MANIAC. The robustnessof the construction indicates so.

The power failure at Chernobyl caused Cimrman also to revise his experimentswith warm snow. He was known to be a good and passionate skier. Every winterhe put a few armfuls of snow into the fridge and hoped to use it in June, butthe Austro-Hungarian electrical grid wasn't reliable either. To prevent hisgrowing dissatisfaction from taking over his plans, Jara had beenthinking for a long time about warm and never thawing snow. His badexperience with the frozen crystals seemed to be the last straw and from thenon he spent all his free time in a well heated calculator working oncomplicated thermodynamical calculations.

He was lucky at the beginning too. American "Gay and Lesbian Association",being mistaken by an ambiguous translation (in Czech "warm" has the samemeaning as "gay" in English), sent Cimrman a cheque for $20 000.Cimrman did not hesitate and on the top of a hill behind the factory builta huge snow mixer and started experimenting. Unfortunately, he relied toomuch on the correctness of his calculator. It somehow messed up the waterand steam equilibria and, during an artificial snow blizzard, Cimrman's bestassistant suffered serious burns. About a week later, Cimrman himself wasadjusting a safety valve and the snow mixer mixed him up so harshly that hehad to retire for two weeks. Cimrman was finished with thewarm snow. But not so with computer science.

There were two more problems Cimrman faced on his way to computers: a transferof files between computers and development of higher programming languages.He started to work on the first one right away in the Ukraine. Unfortunately,the only files he had were in wooden file cabinets in his office andafter two days of moving the heavy furniture around he scribbled down a note:"Files cannot be moved by hand!" As usual, it was a coincidence which helpedhim to find the right way how to transfer files.

One day his best soda-taster Ivan was arrested for sticking his tongue inthe ears of his female co-workers during the working hours. After thatthe quality of the soda water went rapidly down and Cimrman realised that hehad to get Ivan out of prison. Since at that time Cimrman didn't havemuch money to bribe the tzarist police with, he decided to send Ivan a fileto get past the iron rods. Cimrman used the classical approach and baked thefile into a loaf of bread. When he was walking to the prison he struck hishead. What a way to transfer files! And no later than Ivan could resumehis tasting duties Cimrman had developed a special kind of bread, which,for its softness and a noticeably round shape, he called a "floppy disk".

But that was not all. Somehow or other the police found out about Ivan'sescape and Cimrman was summoned to the station where he had to signan affidavit, stating how he helped Ivan to escape and that he would neverdo it again. While reading the resulting "file transfer protocol" Cimrmannoticed that this document is very punctuous and later used its guidelinesfor all transfers of files between incompatible computers.

Finally, we would like to mention Cimrman's work in the field of programminglanguages. During his return trip from the Ukraine, Jara gave the problem a lotof thinking and finally came to the conclusion that a start for anysuccessful language must be a well-defined loop. Already his first attempt,the raw loop "FURT-RAN" ("furt" is a Czech slang for "all the time") wasworking miracles and later became a basis for a popular language Fortran.But Cimrman was aware that he needed more than just a perfected loop andcontinued his search for a language that would be more comprehensive. Andhe struck gold during his forced stop in Presov (Slovakia), where one of hishorses drank a pail of laxative and was incapable of towing for a few days.

At the beginning Cimrman was mad and angrily strode up and down the stables,every now and then taking a pause and shouting:"Shit! Shit!" At dusk hegot tired though, and went to a pub where he spent the next few daysdrinking plum brandy and discussing current language problems withSlovak experts. This cooperation turned out to be very fruitful and at theend the foundations of the first fully fledged computer language ALGOHOLwere laid.

Jan Rehacek - JREHACEK@MATH.GATECH.EDU
Translation: Jan Kybic - KYBIC@EARN.CVUT.CZ, Jan Rehacek - JREHACEK@MATH.GATECH.EDU

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