The birth of it in upper secondary education in Norway

Abstract

The first course in computer science started at "Forsøksgymnaset" (The Experimental High School) in Oslo in 1969. In 1970, it spread to three upper secondary schools (Drammen, Sogndal and Trondheim). The subject was close to mathematics, and the focus was on programming and electronic logic. FORTRAN was the programming language and the programs ran on a large computer, the Univac 1108, located at the technical university (NTH). No relevant subject-related software was available at that time, but the class developed some powerftil cases in mathematics and physics. In electronic logic, we used an electronic machine called Benjamin to do binary operations in the classroom. We can call Benjamin the first "processor" in upper secondary education in Norway. In this paper, we will show that many of the long lasting trends in the subject can be observed in the initial period itself. © 2005 by International Federation for Information Processing. All rights reserved.