RUN "AUTHOR"

Nicolas Korboulewsky.

I have been designing languages, engines and software for more than thirty years. My first computer was a Thomson TO7/70.

TO2026 is a return to the source: the machine where it all began, rebuilt with everything I have learned since.

Explore the machine
Pixel-art portrait of Nicolas Korboulewsky in a dinner jacket
PORTRAIT IN DOTSPOWER ON
  • FIRST COMPUTERThomson TO7/70
  • TODAYFounder of ProSuite OOD
  • BASED INSofia, Bulgaria
  • HIS LANGUAGESBASIC, VVL, and a few others

01 / IN THE BEGINNING

A TO7/70. And the urge to understand how it works.

A screen, a blinking cursor, a light pen: everything was still to be invented.

The TO7/70 was my first computer. TO2026 takes its name, its start-up screen and its colours from it, even though its hardware follows the more complete MO6.

I have never really left that question since: how does a machine understand what we write to it? It led me to neural networks, to languages, to application engines and to artificial intelligence.

Back to the Thomson story

02 / LIST

A career, written as a program.

LIST "CAREER"years serve as line numbers
  1. 1984REM
    The TO7/70

    Thomson releases the TO7/70. It will be my first computer, and TO2026 is its tribute.

  2. 1991REM
    Neural networks

    A publication on backpropagation, the method that lets a neural network learn from its mistakes.

  3. 1999REM
    VDOM

    The VDOM patent. The same technology still drives the new Tekitisy today.

  4. 2001REM
    Tekitisy

    A website editor whose content lives in a database, at a time when pages were still written by hand.

  5. 2007REM
    VAILS

    Launch of VAILS, an international research project with Tomsk State University and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

  6. 2026REM
    TO2026

    Tekitisy comes back in a modern version, and this site is built with it. The TO7/70 comes back too, as a virtual machine.

RUN

03 / TODAY

ProSuite OOD, in Sofia.

I run ProSuite OOD, a software company developing artificial intelligence and neuro-symbolic technology: the learning of neural networks joined with the rigour of logic. Three building blocks, which I invented, form its core.

THE LANGUAGE

VVL

A homoiconic, neuro-symbolic language: a program is itself data it can read and transform. It is grounded in Edward Zalta's theory of abstract objects.

THE SERVER

VAILS

The engine that runs VVL on the server, heir to the 2007 research project.

THE GATEWAY

ODESA

The gateway between artificial intelligence agents and business applications.

04 / WHY TO2026

Languages, again and again.

I love languages, especially old and unexpected ones: Simula, Lisp, Prolog, RPL, miniKanren. Each one is another way of thinking about a program.

TO2026 is my playground. I rewrote the MO6's BASIC 128 from scratch, from the 1986 manual, then imagined the BASIC 2026 we would have loved to have back then. The desktop, Plume and Abaque are there to show how far it can go.

It is a personal project, with no commercial aim: a tribute to the Thomson TO/MO family and to everyone who typed their first lines on these machines.

  • BASIC
  • Simula
  • Lisp
  • Prolog
  • RPL
  • miniKanren
  • VVL

AUTHOR.BAS

10 CLS
20 PRINT "NICOLAS KORBOULEWSKY"
30 PRINT "FIRST COMPUTER: TO7/70"
40 FOR A=1984 TO 2026
50 LOCATE 0,3:PRINT "YEAR";A
60 NEXT A
70 PRINT "STILL AT THE KEYBOARD"
80 GOTO 70

The machine is waiting for your first program.

Switch it on, choose a BASIC, and type your first line.

Explore the machine The BASIC 2026 reference (in French)