Daniel Muszka

Initially, he worked in the Radio Reception and Electro-Acoustic Plant of the Hungarian Post Office, then in 1957, at the invitation of László Kalmár, he joined the Machine Research Laboratory of the Mathematics and Logic and Applications Department of the Mathematical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

From the very beginning of his career, his work was characterized by the construction of machines and systems in addition to design. Between 1957 and 1958, based on the plans of Professor Kalmár, he built the Szeged Logical Machine. Between 1956 and 1957, based on his own research, he created the first Hungarian artificial animal, the trainable Szeged Ladybug, which operates on the basis of conditioned reflexes. In 2011, five thousand visitors admired it in 4 days at the Robotville exhibition organized by the Science Museum in London. In 1960, he designed a sound delay device for the Szeged Outdoor Games, a human-shaped informant speaking in four languages for the Tourist Office; an electronic bell to replace the bell stolen from the Cathedral during World War II, and many other devices. He received patent protection for a total of 11 service inventions.

He became the first and only scientific associate, scientific department head and then technical director of the Cybernetics Laboratory of the University of Szeged (SZTE), which was established at the suggestion of László Kalmár in 1963. He organized and led the installation and operation of the first computers (M-3, Minsk 22 and R-40) that arrived there.

After the death of László Kalmár, from 1981 he solved the climate control of the new, 6.5-hectare greenhouse of the Új Élet Agricultural Production Cooperative in Szeged by installing a special Dutch computer. From 1986 he became the Southern Great Plains regional director of the Agricultural Plant Management, Computer Technology and Information Technology Co. Ltd.

In 1975, together with Győző Kovács, the then Secretary General of the NJSZT, he began collecting computers and computing devices that were used, developed/designed in Hungary. The computers were first stored at the MOL site in Algyő, and then after 2002 in the former Soviet barracks in Öthalam. This unique Informatics History Collection in Europe was taken over by the Informatics History Museum Foundation, established for this purpose, in 1992. – Individual pieces of the collection can be viewed at the Informatics History Exhibition located in the Szent-Györgyi Albert Agóra innovative exhibition center, which opened in Szeged in December 2004.

His awards: Neumann Prize (1977); Kalmár Prize (2005); “Szegedért oklevél” award (2008); Lifetime Achievement Award (NJSZT, 2010); Debreczeni Pál Award (2014). – His biography also includes nine other awards.