In 1957, the Comptoir National d’Escompte de Paris (CNEP) orders the largest computer developed in Europe, the Bull Gamma 60.
This way it went directly from mechanical data processing (all mechanical and electrical-mechanical techniques used to calculate and publish information) to a large, ultra-modern system developed with original components. After an equipment integration and personnel training period, the computer is commissioned in March 1961. It will be run continuously. The bank’s data processing is optimised and the machine is profitable. An average of 30,000 commercial papers are processed daily on the Gamma 60.
When it sought to modernise its image and appear more dynamic at the beginning of the 1960s, the CNEP promoted its technological revolution through an advertising campaign titled “You are in the 20th century…” With this poster the CNEP asserts it modernity by displaying its coded data on a perforated band based on its Gamma 60 computers.
Poster: Havas
