How India’s first educational computer arrived on a bullock cart
The history of computing in India is traced back to 1963, when IIT Kanpur received its first educational computer, the IBM 1620, which was famously transported to campus on a bullock cart. This event established early academic traditions, such as removing shoes before entering computer labs.
Why it matters
This historical anecdote provides context for the cultural norms and institutional habits that shaped the early development of India's technology sector.
Take a look around your school or college computer lab. Chances are you’ll find at least one strict rule that doesn’t exist anywhere else on campus: remove your shoes before entering.
Strange, isn’t it? After all, nobody asks you to take off your shoes before entering a science lab, a maths classroom or the library.
Yet this rule, along with the requirement to write out your code in a notebook before touching a keyboard, has survived for decades. Most of us comply without ever stopping to ask why.
As it turns out, these familiar classroom habits are not just random quirks. They have their roots in the early days of computing in India, a time when computers filled entire rooms, computer time was precious, and one of the country’s first educational computers arrived at IIT Kanpur on a bullock cart.
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