Mailüfterl Emulator

The Mailüfterl Machine

The Mailüfterl was the first fully transistorized computer on continental Europe. It was built at the Technical University of Vienna (Austria) from 1956 to 1958 by Dr. Heinz Zemanek and his team. The machine was very reliable and was in operation until about 1966 (the year, in which I was born).

I wrote a Java emulator of it in 2007. It was a browser applet. Java applets have vanished now, so I had to rewrite it in JavaScript.

This is just the is the old page for my Java version.

Find more information and some instructions below.

My Emulator for the Mailüfterl

In January 2007 I wrote an emulator for the machine as a Java applet. Your browser has to have Java enabled and allow popup windows, because the Mail�fterl's peripheral devices are shown in separate windows.

Any feedback on this program is very much appreciated. Please send me an email.

My next steps will be to make a description of the programming language of the Mailüfterl, to complete my Forth compiler, and my Pascal cross compiler for the machine.

Using the Emulator

Load a pre-stored paper tape in the punched tape reader window, or type in your own program there. Then, assemble the program with the button "Assemble". Then, go to the control desk window and start the program. Watch the output of the program in the teleprinter or relay window.

For the pre-stored original Mailüfterl program (RELAIS) from 1960 this works in the following way: Go to the punched tape reader window. Select paper tape for relay program. Press button "Load". Then assemble the program using the button "Assemble". Watch the assembler listing in the teleprinter. Then, goto the control desk, mark the "X" (jump), select "1000" as "address" (jump destination), select "Bef." (switch to command keyboard), press "BÜ" (transfer jump instruction to the instruction register), and press "Start". Now you can watch the activities in the relay window.

And now, try out software which was written in the fifties and early sixties and probably has not been run for 50 years now!