Gyula Lőcs

He was already interested in computers as a university student: in the 1956/57 academic year (together with János Szelezsán) he was a student in András Békéssy's computer science seminar. His first workplace was the Cybernetics Research Group (KKCS) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, where he became acquainted with the programming of the first Hungarian computer, the M-3.

Between 1961 and 1989, he was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Experimental Physics Research Institute (KFKI). From 1964 to 1966, he spent two years at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna. During this time, he spent half a year at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) learning about high-level programming language compilers. Upon his return to Dubna, he participated in the design of the FORTRAN compiler for the BESZM-6 computer.

He participated in the programming work of the TPA-70 project, which started at the end of the 1960s at KFKI, from the very beginning. He managed the development of the basic program system of the TPA-70/25 together with Lajosné Ivanyos. In the meantime, under his leadership, a FORTRAN compiler was prepared for the 12-bit TPA. After the Measurement and Computing Research Area (the Measurement and Computing Research Institute, the predecessor of MSZKI) was established in 1972, they began developing the basic software system of the TPA-70 (Minor); they also created a Basic interpreter and a FORTRAN compiler. – Between 1971 and 1972, he worked on extending a FORTRAN compiler to graphical data display at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

In the 1960s, KFKI employees played a pioneering and decisive role in introducing new programming languages and computer knowledge. In 1967, the book Algol 60 on the programming language was published by the Technical Publishing House (it went through six editions), followed by books on the FORTRAN and BASIC languages (with co-authors). He translated Dijkstra's seminal work on structured programming into Hungarian. – Generations learned from these books.

He was a member of the Hungarian Society of Software Engineers since its founding; he led the Software Department for years. He shared his knowledge with his colleagues at numerous courses and conferences.

From the 1980s, he taught the history of computer science at ELTE for more than 20 years. From the end of 1991, he became an employee of the Computer Applications Company (Számalk). Here too and at the Gábor Dénes College (GDF), founded in 1992, he taught programming skills – even for a few years after his retirement in 1996.

Awards: KFKI Institute Award for research into programming languages and TPA programming (1971); KFKI Public Culture Award (1981); Kalmár Award (NJSZT, 1986); Gábor Dénes Medal (GDF, 1998); Lifetime Achievement Award (NJSZT, 2016).