Exactly 50 years ago, Mario Tchou, a brilliant Chinese electronic engineer and the head of Olivetti's research centre in Italy, died in a tragic car crash.
In the English-speaking world, he is virtually unknown. Books on the history of the computer rarely mention him. Yet he was one of the great computer pioneers of the 20th century. In Italy, his name is remembered and revered to this day. At a time when China is experiencing a cultural and scientific renaissance, it is all the more important his legacy be preserved.
A Chinese-Italian, Tchou pioneered the use of transistors and built one of the world's first mainframe computers with them. He also led a team that created the world's first desktop.
His father was Tchou Yin, a Chinese diplomat in Rome, whose wife, Evelyn Wang, joined him in 1921. Mario Tchou was born in 1924. His mother was a liberated woman who campaigned for women's rights, especially in China.
Tchou was a brilliant and popular student. His parents' house in Rome was open to the children of prominent Romans, and some still remember the courtyard of the Chinese embassy as an ideal place to play football. Having graduated in engineering in 1945 and won a scholarship, Tchou was sent to the United States.
While there, he met Mariangela Siracusa, an Italian student at Columbia University, and soon married her. By 1952 he was already an assistant professor at Columbia in electrical engineering and a director of the prestigious Marcellus Hartley Laboratory. He was working under John R.Ragazzini, who during the second world war contributed to the development of analogue calculators and control systems.