History of computing in Metzetta

Computers have been of interest to Metzetta since their invention, and nowadays are viewed as commonplace appliances like a television or refrigerator. Due to the unique Hangul alphabet employed by Metzi, the market for personal computers has often been separate from the western markets due to the different technologies required to make the language work on computers, in terms of both keyboards for input and displaying the characters onscreen.

Before 1940: Mechanical Computing
Water integrator built to solve partial differential equations.

1955-1969: Digital Mainframe Era
Miu Motors founder Du Chungae saw the potential in digital computing and founded Miu Electronics in 19XX. Miu Electronics partnered with Ankae Institute of Science and Technology to design their first computer, the mainframe MMC-1001 (Miu Mainframe Computer), nicknamed "The Professor" by the engineering team. Unusually, the MMC-1001 used ternary logic rather than the more common (eventually standard) binary, however for compatibility the third state could be ignored to run essentially binary code. Fifty MMC-1001s were built and delivered, however it is believed only 2 survive today, only one of which is remotely operational.

1970-1975: Personal Computer Era
In 1970 the ISP 1000 had been developed in Urcea, the first commercially available microprocessor, and it was immediately imported to Metzetta for use in large mainframe computers. By 1972, Metzetta's first PC had been developed; the Heiran 8, running on a chip designed in Jamsu Institute of Science and Technology in 1971, the JIST HOPE. The Heiran Corporation standardised the Metzettan keyboard layout and pioneered the use of deconstructed hangul (i.e. 잠수 became ㅈㅏㅁㅅㅜ) onscreen to save space and reduce complexity, which remained a common practice into the early 90's.

Miu Electronics soon followed this up with a microprocessor of their own design, the ME-50, which they used in a PC of their own, the Uloe (named after the Metzettan goddess of thunder and lightning). While the ME-50 saw use in many Metzetta-designed PCs, the Uloe was unsuccessful; mostly due to being much more expensive than the similarly-specced Heiran 8. In 1973 Hanzeong Electronic Applied Research Technology released the HEART 4+4, Metzetta's first clone computer. The 4+4 was mostly compatible with the Uloe's software thanks to its ME-50 chip and sold for a much lower price, eventually proving more successful than the Uloe itself.

1976-1985: Microcomputer Era
Zniggy runs on the Riwa-1

1986-2010: Portable Computing Era
(Miu Electronics exits the consumer products market to focus on making chips and industrial/business products.)