At 19:20 12/05/99 -0400, you wrote: Hi Bill, I've visited yr. URL and auot the page http://www.cs.unc.edu/~yakowenk/classiccmp/univac/giorn1.jpg you wrote: something >about the first computer used in some school in Italy. But Bill, I'm here :-) ...just ask! It's true, the article is used in this website (the school's website) as proof of being (since 1970) the first Italian school (not university) equipped with a computer. MESTRE is "VENICE on earth" = is the small city that connects Venice-on-water with the continent. There they have schools, offices, houses, etc. that in Venice are not possible or effordable. "Zuccante" is the name for this school that is a technical engineer school with a training course for programmers. Briefly the article explained the new chance offered by this school to the student-workers with evening (after work) courses that allowed to get the degree in "computer science engineering". The aim of the article's author was to convince the readers about the advanced equipment in school's laboratory and the importance of the outcoming new profession:computers programmer Curiosity: The author wrote that the new development was the "new disk and tape system that is capable to expand the memory of the central unit, allowing the warehousing of thousands of useful processing data" ^^^^^^^^ In the reality Mr. Luciano Tagliapietra (the man in the picture that was the UNIVAC technician), tells that despite what was written in the article, those expansion units where never bought by this institute, because in 1973 that kind of computer with only 16 Kb memory and the need of air conditioner, was considered at the sunset. have a Hmm, I can't tell what Mr. Tagliapietra is handling in the picture, but the rectangular opening in the top of the first machine with the slope, seems to be a card reader. Probably the other was a big puncher? Ciao Riccardo Romagnoli <chemif(a)mbox.queen.it> I-47100 Forl?