Computer sports

Computer sport was a term coined in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the 1980s for organized forms of using home computers as a leisure activity . The corresponding activities included, in particular, regular meetings of active computer users to exchange experiences as well as further training events and competitions.

The Society for Sport and Technology (GST) was responsible for looking after the computer sports area , in which a separate section was created alongside other technical sports disciplines such as amateur radio and radio direction finding . Corresponding groups existed primarily at educational and leisure facilities such as the polytechnical high schools or the extended high schools and the pioneer houses as well as at vocational schools and universities that were equipped with appropriate computer cabinets. The aim was to impart knowledge about computer hardware up to and including building computers as well as using and developing software in-house . In particular, the 8-bit small computers of the series KC 85 / 2-4 from the Kombinat Mikroelektronik Erfurt and KC 87 from the Kombinat Robotron , which were available to private users in the GDR from the beginning of the 1980s. The most important publication in the field of computer sports was the GST monthly magazine Funkamateur .

There were competitions in computer sports in the form of so-called programming Olympiads , in which, for example, computer programs had to be developed within a certain period of time for given tasks or errors in existing programs had to be found.

literature

• Society for Sport and Technology (GST), 1952–1990. In: Andreas Herbst , Winfried Ranke, Jürgen Winkler: This is how the GDR worked: Lexicon of Organizations and Institutions. Volume 1. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-49-916348-9 , pp. 344-349