József Lukács (1961)

He started working with electronics at the age of 12, encouraged by a teacher, with the help of older schoolmates. He completed his secondary school studies in the physics department (József Attila High School). His physics teacher taught the experimental curriculum of the Nature Unit of ELTE; through him he got a summer internship at KFKI, where he first encountered a computer (KIM1) under the direction of Zoltán Zámori; the machine later ended up in a lab at the Budapest University of Technology (BME), where as a schoolboy he was able to create (in machine code) an educational program using statistical physical models; then he wrote the high school's timetable planning program on an Apple II computer (in Basic language).

During his military service (1979-1980), he “got a hold of” an Ohio Scientific (MOS Technology 6502 CPU) board, which his younger brother, Endre Lukács, first introduced to (who also attended KFKI summer camps and there decompiled the Microsoft Basic interpreter used on all personal computers at the time). Based on his familiarity with this machine, he built his first computer (1980), which he named HomeLab. Endre wrote the Basic interpreter for it. The HomeLab ran on a Z80 processor with a 4 MHz clock speed, had 8K ROM and 8K RAM, and a 256x256 pixel black/white graphic display. Only one copy was made, and even that had to be sacrificed to build the HomeLab 2I, which then debuted at the HCC club in Budapest in the fall of 1981. The interest was enormous, and the Lukács brothers quickly became pioneers of the heroic era of Hungarian computer technology.

In the socialist shortage economy, it was impossible to obtain parts, so they published their plans in the Bitlet supplement of the Ötlet magazine so that anyone could build it.
As a second-year university student (1982), he founded an economic working community (77 GMK), and here he manufactured/had manufactured the unique components of the HomeLab 2I: a 2-sided printed circuit board, a rudimentary box, a membrane keyboard instead of a keyboard. As a result, an extensive computer building movement started within the HCC/HomeLab; many amateurs and professionals built HomeLab computers at home.

In addition to university, he attended the Eötvös club for years, where he gave advice; he burned the Basic programs written by his younger brother into the memories, he powered up the unique-looking DIY computers, and he measured the faults in the circuits. In the meantime, the HomeLab 3 was also completed, which could also be retrofitted in the same way. According to estimates, the number of machines made in this way was over 1000.
The BosCoop Cooperative in Budaörs produced the Homlab 2 under license under the name AirComp16; the Color Industrial Cooperative in Dombóvár produced the HomeLab 3. A speaking version of the Homelab 3 was made for the blind under the name BraiLab, whose speech synthesizer was developed by the married couple working at KFKI, András Arató and Teréz Vaspöri, and Endre integrated it into the operating system. The last generation HomeLab5 already handled floppy disks and ran the CP/M operating system.

The HomeLab story was written by György Marosán Jr. in 1985 in the magazine Valóság under the title “Parallel Stories”. As a result, the reform-minded economic leaders of the time brought together József Lukács with Sándor Demján, the CEO of the Skála department store, who saw a fantasy in the cooperation (according to the idea, Skála would tell what was needed in the market, 77 GMK would develop it, other Skála interests would manufacture it, and then Skála would sell it). With the financial help and participation of Skála , the 77 Elektronika Little Cooperative (later Ltd.) was established. After a while, the cooperation became pointless, so 77 Elektronika had to stand on its own feet.
They created a chicken incubator controller, experimented with telecommunications equipment, and finally launched a home blood sugar meter. The software for these was mostly written by Endre. Sándor Zettwitz (József's father-in-law) joined the company in 1989, and this brought commercial momentum. 77 Elektronika soon became one of the most significant companies in Hungarian medical electronics.

In 2001, Lukács felt he had to change again (77 had become too big a company - at that time about 250 people - in which he no longer felt comfortable). Therefore - in his words: - he "looked for another sandbox for himself". Thus was born Dension Audio Systems Kft., which - based on Endre's idea - produced a hard disk-based MP3 player for use in cars - called DMP3. The device allowed the playback of content from several thousand CDs in the car. The device was ahead of its time, but there was no significant demand for it (at the same time, a few years later, Apple's iPod turned the world upside down). Dension's main product eventually became the adapter unit, which was developed to connect the DMP3 to the car. After some modifications, this became suitable for controlling the iPod and then the iPhone, with which Dension quickly became a supplier to most European car manufacturers. The boom was ended by the post-2008 crisis, and adapter units were gradually replaced by MP3 and iPod-capable head units.

In 2010, József Lukács, in his own words, “fell out of love with the gadget industry.” He gathered young programmers around him and founded Prodosoft Kft., in which he combines his 30 years of industrial experience into a fully integrated, production- and quality-oriented enterprise management system.

Award: Kalmár Prize (shared with Endré Lukács, NJSZT, 1986).