Smaky Story: A Comprehensive Approach of Computing in French-Speaking Switzerland

This doctoral research proposal, presented at a PhD consortium, sets out to examine the Smaky microcomputers, a series of Swiss machines developed in a laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne in the 1970s and marketed in French-speaking Switzerland until the late 1990s. Its central aim is to deepen understanding of the Smaky's place in Swiss computing and video game heritage, an area that has received little academic attention and currently rests largely on the work of enthusiasts, journalists, and former engineers. The project is framed as a four-year initiative, Confederatio Ludens, with the PhD work beginning in February 2023.

The proposed methodology integrates sociology, historical science, and computer science, drawing on platform studies and media archaeology to analyze the technical characteristics of the machines alongside the practices of inventors, operators, and users across the 1960s to 1990s. The research relies chiefly on grounded theory, as adapted by Christophe Lejeune, with the goal of building a theoretical model of the Smaky's social and practical dimensions. Data collection is to combine oral history interviews with creators, operators, and users, and analysis of industrial archives, newspapers, and websites, with comparison between written sources and interview testimony to trace how experiences evolved over time.

The author justifies the local focus on the grounds that local histories illuminate the sociocultural and geographic specificity of game creation and consumption, a dimension largely neglected in game history. The proposal cautions, however, that such local accounts must remain critical rather than becoming a celebratory orthodoxy valued only for their uniqueness. The stated contribution is a more precise account of how actors experienced key stages of computing in French-speaking Switzerland and a challenge to dominant narratives about computing and gaming cultures.